


Impossible Dream

by OverWroughtThought



Series: Weird Tentacle Romance [1]
Category: Acquisitions Inc., Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The "C" Team
Genre: Anxiety, Asphyxiation, Body Horror, Body Modification, Clear and enthusiastic consent, Flogging, Fluff, Friendship, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Intrusive Thoughts, It's a drow/illithid pairing so that last one should be pretty self evident really, Loss, M/M, Mourning, Nightmares, Other, Self-Harm, Self-Loathing, Spiders, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13819974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverWroughtThought/pseuds/OverWroughtThought
Summary: K'thriss did not allow himself idle fancies, but after meeting Carver Gol, he made an exception.  What he discovered shattered all expectations.





	1. Theological Foreplay

**Author's Note:**

> If you're seeking turgid tendrils I fear this tale shall not slake your terrible thirst -- although I'm told it may awaken it -- but if you delight in two outcasts finding comfort in a kindred spirit, it should be a perfect fit. While some chapters do feature a particular kink (chapters 2 & 9 being the spiciest) there's a whole lot of fluffy romance, walks on the beach, and weathering grief and anxiety with the balm of a little love. Enjoy, and may my labors please you.

Dreaming was a novelty for K'thirss.  He preferred to deal in meditations and absolutes, not unpredictable possibilities.  Yet that night he allowed himself to close his eyes and drift, as humans did.  He remembered watching the black dais and the illithid carver fade from view through Ligotti's sight.  The lumbering beetle swayed beneath him, trundling its way inexorably toward the city he most dreaded visiting.  
  
He wondered if inevitable events would ever take him to places he _wanted_ to go.  
  
Belatedly he realized that floating in an ocean beneath endless stars was not the same as a beetle's back and concluded he'd fallen asleep.  It caused him no anxiety.  This was quiet, peaceful, and he was utterly alone.  He was used to being alone.  It was no great hardship.  
  
High above him, he watched a single red star brighten.  Then grow larger.  It expanded in his sight, a crimson filament descending towards him.  
  
_I don't know what god that is?_ he thought, but in this realm of dreams that didn't seem true.  He knew, and he hated it, its petty arrogance.  Its simple, mundane desires.  Revulsion crawled across his skin, but he took no action, only heaved a sigh and watched it uncoil.  Resigned, numb.  _Inevitable events._  
  
Something disturbed the water on his left side.  Then again on his right.  More resided in this ocean than reflected stars.  He was not alone.  
  
A band of muscle wrapped around his waist and pulled, dragging him under the water just before the crimson tendril touched him.  As K'thriss descended, he watched with satisfaction as the red glow faded from view, the tentacle from the heavens unable to pierce the barrier of the ocean surface.  A smug smile graced K'thriss' face.

 _Such a worthless, stupid god,_ he thought.  His certainty in The Ur's power grew.  _A being as pathetic as Meat and Mouths could never contain such a great unknowable.  There is more to The Ur's plan than either servant or jailer comprehend.  As it should be._  
  
The water around him became colder and darker as he descended.  It reminded him of the underwater kingdom he'd briefly visited.  _Did Omin sell me to take Jim Darkmagic's place?_   The irrational concern flickered across his mind.  Once there, his dream self could not dislodge the idea.  Majestic as the great salmon was, K'thriss was not prepared to be her lover.  He began to struggle.  Air suddenly became a concern.  His sight was gone, lost in this dark place, stolen by betrayal.  Where was Ligotti?  He thrashed against the force pulling him, panic rising.  _I don't want to go!  Any place but Guallidurth!_   The water smothered him, pressed against his chest.  _Not like this._  
  
Abruptly the pressure around his waist vanished.  K'thriss lashed out with arms and legs, trying to swim, but realized he did not know which way was up. He froze, fearing any direction he chose might be the wrong one.  Lost. Alone.  Forever.  _Inevitable._  
  
A hand found his, warm, but oddly shaped.  Curiosity replaced his fear.  _Only three fingers,_ he realized at last.  A second hand caressed his face, ran across his lips, and he could breathe again.  A pressure eased in his chest.  K'thriss reached out and closed about a familiar shoulder, lithe beneath layers of imposing cloth and cloak.  _New Friend,_ he thought, and pulled the illithid into a relieved embrace.  He felt Gol slowly return it and they clung to each other in the water.  It never seemed awkward, which was in itself odd.  _With all the stories_ , K'thriss thought, _nothing should be more unnatural than this.  But that's not how this feels._  
  
His feet touched stone.  K'thriss pulled back and the illithid's arms fell away.  The warlock reached down and felt the ground.  Chipped, smooth, and cool.  He stood, realizing warm air surrounded him, not cold water.  The illithid put a gentle hand on the small of his back to lead him forward, placing K'thriss' hand on a vertical surface of the same stone.  As he discovered the shape of it by touch, K'thriss realized where he was.  The black dais and its ring of chairs, formed in the druid battle. It felt more real here than it had been in his waking life.    
  
"Even in this place, you hunch," Gol said.  "I find that very strange."  
  
"I didn't know if I would meet you here," K'thriss ignored the comment, contrarily resisting the urge to straighten his posture.  If anything, he hunched a little further.  
  
"But you hoped?" Gol asked.  
  
"Would I have allowed myself to dream, otherwise?" K'thriss countered.  Gol's staccato bark rang out.  K'thriss' theorized it a laugh.  
  
"Oh, I have missed this kind of sparring," Gol said.  "Goblin hordes can be a devastating force, but they are not much for intellectual stimulation."  
  
"If they are so pointless, why raise such an army?  You said yourself, they would be useless where I need to go," K'thriss' thumb ghosted along the edge of the chair's back, fingering the sharp obsidian edge.  "I guess it's understandable.  I've the benefit of The Ur's guidance in this matter," he said, a little slyly.  
  
An odd, wet, choking sound met that pronouncement.  "What you call guidance I suspect is luck," Gol said.  "Eaten gods say little and The Ur has said nothing for a very long time.  That's why it lost all worshipers."  
  
"All but _one_ ," K'thriss said, hotly.  "You conflate worship with power.  The Ur does not need it.  Why would a _truly_ great god care for the adoration of insignificant beings?  Is _That Which Endures_ so vain?  So petty?"  
  
"Petty is a god that must eat others for power," returned Gol, voice warm and near.  K'thriss was sure if he reached out, he could grasp the illithid's cloak and pull him closer.  His hands trembled with the urge to do so, but K'thriss held them still as the carver continued, "Yet this _petty_ god consumed The Ur first.  How many gods did it have to devour before it had the strength to take on mine?  Admit it, The Ur is the _weakest_ among the imprisoned."  
  
K'thriss found his eyesight suddenly returned. Ligotti, as a staff, rested firmly in his hand.  He brought the end of the hard crystal down to the stone floor with a _CRACK_ and the sigil of The Ur blazed from Ligotti's many eyes.  The symbol danced across the shining facets of the table and the floor.  Gol leaned back, looking around in wonder.  
  
"I have been to the crystal prison," K'thriss intoned.  "The Ur spoke to me, but my mortal shell could only faintly comprehend its words.  Do you think such a being would let all of itself be taken in?  No.  Meat and Mouths has but a facet of a greater whole, and you and I are nothing in the face of it."  
  
The illithid looked at him, tentacles curling and releasing.  The skin around their eyes crinkled in what might have been a smile.  
  
"There it is," Gol said, voice fond.  
  
"What?" K'thriss instinctively turned Ligotti to look over his shoulder, but saw nothing but an endless dark beyond the dais.     
  
Gol clucked.  "You're standing up straight."  
  
K'thriss felt his face flush.  "That's not -- what we were talking about --" He felt off balance, flustered, and tried to gather every ounce of affronted dignity.  "Did you mean _any_ of that?"    
  
Another bout of Gol's barking laugh.  The carver leaned closer, tentacles idly brushing across the symbols of K'thriss' Foci necklace.  
  
"In truth," Gol said, "I suspect your god and mine near equals.  As I said before, they are two parenthesis.  To diminish one would reduce both.  I have my preference, of course," one tentacle strayed from the artifact and trailed along the skin of K'thriss' neck.  A quiver of tingling pleasure shot through the drow's body and a small gasp escaped his throat.  Gol continued as though unaware, "but I am starting to see the appeal of the other."  
  
"Of The Ur?" K'thriss asked weakly.  
  
The illithid leaned in closer.  "Yes.  Of course.  The Ur," Gol said, in a tone that clarified nothing.  "So I hope you'll once again forgive my passion for these matters.  I have so little opportunity for theological _exploration_."  The tendril continued caressing K'thriss' neck, snaking around and up, tip brushing his cheek.  The illithid's voice dropped deeper, hungrier, "And when you rise to the defense of your god, you become very… _enticing_.  My people would fall over themselves for a chance to consume a mind such as yours."  
  
"Aw, thank you." K'thriss felt oddly flattered.  "You know, I hadn't considered it, but I might add that to my list of preferred deaths.  Although," he ducked his head, "it would depend on the person doing the, uh, the flaying."  
  
Gol pulled back and the tentacle slid away along the path it came.  K'thriss gripped Ligotti for balance, feeling strangely lightheaded and bereft as it left his skin.    
  
"I would never do such a thing to you," Gol assured him.    
  
K'thriss waved his hand.  "Oh, no, it's fine.  I don't ask my friends to kill me," he said.  Then paused.  "Well, Donaar and I have talked about it, but he gets _very_ bored in the back of that cart and we have to talk about _something_.  But that's all it is, just talk.  Really, it's nothing serious.  Which, I mean," he was babbling.  In front of Gol.  And could not stop.  So embarrassing.  _Stupid.  Worthless.  Why are you like this?_  
  
"You misunderstand," the illithid said, reaching out to clasp K'thriss' arm.  "Devouring your mind would be ecstasy beyond compare," the illithid's voice was molten, and for a moment K'thriss' entire body felt aflame.  Gol caressed the side of his face with the back of one hand.  "But then we could no longer talk like this," they said, "And I would miss that."  
  
"Just talk?" the question slipped out of K'thriss' mouth in a husky whisper.  _What am I doing?_ rang the appalled thought right after it.  _As if you haven't made enough of a fool of yourself already._  
  
The illithid pulled K'thriss into an embrace.  Tentacles curled about the warlock's shoulders, his face, as Gol's mouth neared K'thriss' ear.  "We could learn such things from each other," the illithid whispered.  "There is so much we can explore, together."  
  
"Together," K'thriss said aloud, hesitant, almost a question.  
  
And heard no answer.  
  
It was dark again, but not as it had been.  A fire crackled nearby, periodically overshadowed by loud, draconic snores.  Warm, too warm, he was sweating.  K'thriss shoved away a blanket that some well meaning soul (Rosie, it could only be Rosie) had put over him, hands shaking.  Ligotti chirped sleepily nearby and suddenly he could see.  Donaar was to his left, head pillowed on Clarkmoore's flank.  To his right, balanced on the beetle's back, Walnut sat in meditation.  Splayed far less gracefully over the beetle's snout was the goblin Tas-T, fanged mouth open, drool running down the carapace he slept on.  K'thriss released a sigh.  
  
"Sleep well?" Rosie asked.  K'thriss nearly jumped out of his skin.  The halfling peered at him across the fire.  Those too-wise eyes of hers studying him.    
  
"I --  Dreams.  Novel!" he laughed nervously, voice crawling upward in pitch with each word.  "Don't have them a lot.  Just, you know," he was babbling again and it only conjured still fresh images from the dream.  _Ecstasy beyond compare_.  He shivered and hurriedly pulled his cloak close to hide his growing arousal.    
  
"Mm hmm," Rosie said.  She raised an eyebrow.  "What kind of novel are we talking?  Tragedy?  Comedy?" her voice dropped salaciously, " _Romance?_ "  
  
"Oooh just the regular kind," K'thriss squeaked, then cleared his throat.  "I, uh, I drowned, I think?"  
  
"So you...died?" Rosie paused, considering.  "That was…nice…for…you?"  She was trying so hard to guess at his preferences.  
  
He smiled.  "Oh, yes.  It was nice," he said. His entire body felt warm.  A spark shivered through his nerves like lightning.  "Very nice."  
  
"Then I'm happy for you," Rosie said, after only a touch of hesitation.  They shared a quiet moment, watching the fire.  
  
"We're all just the shoes of some god," he said, breaking the silence.  He was surprised by how bitter his voice sounded.  Who could he possibly be so angry at?  "We go where they need us to."  He hunched, gathering up the discarded blanket, picking at the threads.  "Does that make the events of our lives inevitable?  Does it leave any room for," he glanced up at her, "our own desires?"  
  
Rosie chuckled.  "Well, I don't know what god might be using _me_ as a shoe, but if that's the case I've always found a way to sneak off their path…and into a bed of my choosing.  Or cart.  Or ship hammock.  There was this one time when -"  
  
"Agreed!" K'thriss said quickly.  He didn't dislike Rosie's stories, but he wasn't quite ready to let go of the thoughts in his mind.  "Thank you.  That is a comfort."  He rolled over, staring out into the near unbroken shadow of the Underdark.  
  
"I'll tell you some other time, then," Rosie said.  
  
"Yes.  Good night!" K'thriss replied.  
  
_Was it real?_ he wondered, feeling the warmth of Gol's hand on his arm, a comforting pressure on his back, an easy embrace.  In his memory, the slick flesh of the illithid's tentacles traced their way around his neck.  He swallowed.  _Or just…a pleasant way to pretend things could be different?_  
  
_Dream of me again,_ spoke Gol's voice in his mind, _and find out._  


	2. Deathwish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kink the first: Asphyxiation 
> 
> My research indicated that illithid bodies become intersex after transformation and I have incorporated that accordingly, both in anatomical description and pronoun choices.
> 
> A mild TW for unwanted, non-sexual touch. Not done in malice, but by accident, and addressed immediately. It's there all the same, for those of you that benefit from a gentle warning.

It began as a comparison in anatomy.

He'd a day to consider whether to entertain another dream of Gol, but in truth he'd never been so eager for them to make camp. This being his third experience with dreaming, K'thriss felt he was getting the hang of navigating the space. He could have summoned a facsimile of Ligotti to act as his eyes, but he took a sensory pleasure in relying on touch alone. Besides, it seemed more private that way. Respectful, somehow.

He didn't mind Gol seeing his naked body. Clothing was always optional to K'thriss, but most people felt differently and he preferred not to make them uncomfortable. They threw far fewer rocks that way. As for Gol, there seemed a degree of hesitation there. The illithid's raiment was an ordeal to strip away, layer upon layer of stiff cloth hiding a much smaller figure than the garments would suggest. Gol became quieter and quieter with each piece removed, and although the illithid assured K'thriss that all was well, when the drow first touched Gol's skin, the muscles he found were tight with tension.

Almost without thinking, K'thriss began to massage the knots. Gol released keening moan.

K'thriss paused. "Is that okay?"

"Wonderful," Gol sighed. "Would you mind doing more?"

So K'thriss started with the feet, which were tipped with claws and, he discovered with surprise, webbed. Then worked past thin ankles, wiry calves, and taut thighs. Gol burbled happily as the drow worked clever hands into strained sore spots. As he drew up to the hips, K'thriss paused and cleared his throat. "Uhm, do you want me to…?"

"Only if you want," came the hurried reply. Gol almost sounded shy, which was odd compared to the carver's usual domineering presence. K'thriss wasn't sure he liked hearing Gol that way, but at the same time, he cherished it. He suspected few in this world had ever heard the mind flayer sound unsure. Gently, he ran his hands across a firm abdomen, splaying fingers wide over bony hips, and then dipped down between the illithid's legs. What he found there was a mix of familiar and foreign. A ribbed shaft, wet, half hard, partially emerged from an interior casing. It twitched as he stroked it. Beneath was an opening, slick to the touch.

"Before I was born, this body was a male drow," Gol explained when K'thriss asked. "When one of my kind takes over, the body of the host changes a little." Gol shifted, partially sitting up. "Does that bother you?"

"No," K'thriss said. "The body is just a shell. As for death, that is," he bit his lip, "an exciting unknown. The body will become host for something regardless. Maggots, spores, worms. Turning into a new form of _intelligent_ life seems a better outcome than most."

Gol thumped down to a prone position and made their wet choking sound again. K'thriss sat back on his haunches. "Are you laughing at me?" K'thriss demanded, affronted.

"No, friend," Gol said. "No, I'm laughing at myself. I meant, does my _genitalia_ bother you, but now I see how foolish that question was. Not to mention vain."

"Oh," K'thriss said. He shrugged. "It's fine."

Gol continued laughing, subsiding eventually into a contented sigh as K'thriss' fingers resumed roaming up their body. Their muscles seemed far less tense now. "My kind can play either role, as most humanoids think of it," Gol said, tone instructive. "I myself have both laid eggs and fertilized them. It is different than what I've seen in the memories of your kind, but not so different."

"Hmm," K'thriss made an interested noise, hands working up firm arms and creeping past the illithid's chest to discover a surprisingly thick neck. As he ran his fingers on the warm, moist skin, the tentacles on Gol's face kept winding themselves about his hands.

"Sorry," mumbled Gol, sounding deliriously relaxed. "They have a bit of a mind of their own. I can make them stop."

K'thriss chuckled. "It's not a problem," he said. He carefully pulled on a particularly inquisitive tentacle that had wrapped itself multiple times up his arm. K'thriss massaged it gently, exploring its texture. Gol let loose another keening moan, so K'thriss continued, working his way down the appendage, marveling at how it became longer and longer as it relaxed. Out of almost reflexive habit, his tongue darted out, licking it.

 _Slightly saline with acidic qualities, citric and sour notes,_ the entry in K'thriss' _Edibles and Oddities of the Underdark_ would read.

Gol's keening reached an even higher pitch when he'd done _that_ , so K'thriss tried it again. For the sake of thoroughness. _Induces slight tingling in lips._

Gol writhed. K'thiss enveloped a length of the tentacle with his mouth and played his tongue along the surface of the skin. Just to be sure he'd gotten all the salient details. _Numbness in tongue may develop at extended exposure._

Gol pulled the appendage away and lay gasping.

"Are you all right?" K'thriss asked, concerned. They communicated so differently. Perhaps he'd mistook sounds of pain as sounds of pleasure?

"Very…sensitive…" Gol managed. The illithid rolled on their side, curling around K'thriss' body where the drow sat naked on the floor. Their chest heaved as they calmed their breathing, body quivering, so very warm against K'thriss' cooler skin. Something wet, now fully emerged from where it had hidden inside the illithid's body, pressed against the drow's leg. K'thriss wasn't sure if he'd done something very wrong or far too well, so he rubbed his hand softly against the carver's back in what he hoped was comforting gesture. "Sensitive…but _good,_ " Gol volunteered finally, and K'thriss released a nervous breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Gol sat up and pushed on K'thriss' chest gently.

 _"My_ turn," they said, the commanding tone once more in evidence. The sound had a delicious effect on K'thriss' body. He eagerly eased himself back, blind and full of anticipation.

And waited.

And _waited._

K'thriss thought himself a patient person. He could endure a great deal with little complaint. The silence, though, was overwhelming. Never had he missed his sight so dearly. _Did I wake up again? Has he left?_

Were he meditating, he could dismiss such thoughts with ease, but irrational fears seemed to have unusual intensity in dreams. His hand searched the ground around him, seeking contact. A short gasp of air left him when a hand found his.

"You're still here," he said plaintively, and felt foolish as soon as the words left him.

"I was considering my strategy," Gol said, "and taking in the sights."

"It's fine," K'thriss said, trying to cover for his bout of nerves, "Take all the time you li- _AhhHA_!" His breath left him as four tentacles writhed down the length of his body from shoulder to hip, utterly unexpected. His back arched, hand gripping Gol's tighter. Gol's strange chuckle preceded another cascade of touches, this one hip to toe, tickling behind his knees, brushing against his hardening member. Gol's hand left his and K'thriss lay breathless, quivering, unsure where the next caress would come from. A touch on his neck, a curl around his stomach, his arm, his ankle. The sensations were overwhelming, disorienting, and increasingly intense. It felt like lines of lightning streaked across his skin, goosebumps raised in their wake.

One brushed a ticklish spot across his ribs, forcing out a gasping giggle. All motion stopped. K'thriss had a breathless moment to think, _Oh no,_ before all four concentrated their attention on that spot. _No, no, no!_ His body jerked, giggling turning into laughter, loud in his ears, but with a hysterical edge. He _hated_ this feeling. A crawling, nauseating, horrible loss of control, all compulsive movement and sound. He couldn't _breathe_. "Please --" he rasped between gasps. "Please --"

 _STOP!_ he shouted, not with words, but broadcast in a desperate cast of _Awakened Mind._

Gol jerked away as though he'd been struck. K'thriss curled up in a tiny ball. _Stupid_ , he thought. _Upset by a child's game._ _Worthless._ For a long time the only thing he could hear was his own recriminations.

"I have done something wrong," Gol said finally.

"No," K'thriss said, his arms protectively wrapped around his ribs. "No, it's fine. I'm sorry. It's not your fault."

"I…have memories, from other minds. Tick-ling? I thought it pleasant?" Gol asked. "You were laughing. Was it laughing? Was that incorrect?"

"No, I was. Just not…" he felt increasingly mortified. He forced his back to uncurl, inch by inch, into a vulnerable and open display. "This body's just a shell," he said, his voice flat. "Only a shell. Do what you like. It's not so bad. I've endured far worse."

The illithid's hand found his once more and squeezed. "I _never,_ " Gol said, sounding furious, "want our time together to be something you _endure._ "

K'thriss didn't know what to say. Gol lay down next to him, their clasped hands the only point of contact between them. There was a huff of expelled breath.

"This will be a greater challenge if you aren't honest about what you do and do not desire," Gol said.

"I _am_ honest," K'thriss said. He released Gol's hand, rolling over to rest his weight on his elbows. "It doesn't matter. None of it _matters._ It's just _flesh,_ " he spat out the words, stomach in knots. _Worthless._

Gol said nothing, only waited.

"I don't know how," K'thriss continued haltingly. "The words to say. In the moment. I don't…" he thought of mobs, and shouting, and rocks. "I don't like making people uncomfortable."

"Hmm," Gol rumbled thoughtfully, a gurgling sound emitting from their chest. "Is there a single word? Something easier to say, which you'd never use in pleasure or in jest?"

"Guallidurth," K'thiss uttered, unthinking. He nearly clapped his hand over his mouth. Shame burned through him. He didn't need eyes to know Gol was looking at him. The illithid's gaze was heavy on his cooling skin.

"It scares you," the carver observed.

" _Yes_ ," K'thriss hissed.

"But you are going anyway."

"I must."

"Thank you," the illithid said. "For the sake of your god and mine." He rolled over and reached out a hand, hovering it above K'thriss' back. "May I touch you again?" Gol asked.

K'thriss tensed. He forced his tone to be light. "If you like."

The illithid regarded him for a moment, then dropped the hand, simply laying down next to K'thriss so that their shoulders barely touched. K'thriss sighed, both regretful and at the same time grateful. Slowly he leaned against the illithid, savoring the warmth of the contact.

"Your companion accused you of cowardice," Gol said, "but I think you very brave to go."

"The worst they will do is kill me," K'thriss said. _I hope._

"That is not what frightens you," Gol observed.

"No. There are ways I'd prefer to die," K'thriss said, side-stepping the implied question, "but one way or another, it is inevitable. And interesting."

"How so?"

"Because ultimately, it is unknown," K'thriss explained, warming to the subject. "There are many faiths that speak of the afterlife, eternal service to lesser gods, that sort of thing. But do we _know_ for certain what happens? What about ghosts? What about those that do not worship? What about people like ourselves, following different kinds of gods? You described _That Which Endures_ as a god of complete dissolution. What is _that_ like? What might be _beyond_ that?" There was yearning in his voice.

"The idea excites you?"

"Yes," K'thriss said, hungry and reverent at the same time. "Oh, yes."

"We could take you to the edge of that," Gol said casually, "And bring you back again."

K'thriss turned his head towards the illithid out of habit, even though he no longer had eyes to stare with.

"How?" he asked, fervently.

A tentacle trailed across K'thriss' Foci on its ever-changing chain, one of only two articles of clothing the warlock had not removed. Then it trailed upward, brushing his neck.

"Pressure in the right places," Gol said.

K'thriss sat up, his whole body vibrating like a plucked string. "Oh, no. That's…that's dangerous. I could have a heart attack. Or a stroke. I could _die._ " His breath came quicker as he spoke, heart palpitating at the thought. "Just…just to the edge, though," he licked his lips. It was such a tempting offer. "Only that far…" a more sobering thought occurred to him. "It could damage my mind. Permanently. I could forget things. Fall into a coma." None of those possibilities were so bad, except, "I'd fail in my mission to The Ur."

"I would not let it happen," Gol said.

"How could you be certain? By the time I lost consciousness, the damage might already be done," K'thriss dismissed the idea firmly. He knew he was right, but never had he hated facts and reason so dearly.

"You forget, I'm not like most you've met," Gol said, one tentacle rising to touch K'thriss' temple through his blindfold. "I can monitor your body in ways no other could. Join you inside your mind. If you would trust me to be so…intimate…with you."

K'thriss quivered. "Yes," he said. His body ached. "Yes, I would. Please. If you're sure. If you're absolutely _certain._ "

"I am," Gol said, and it was like the tolling of a deep, resonant bell. K'thriss believed him without question. The illithid continued in a more moderate tone, "but first I'd like to complete my explorations," the tentacle dragged against the cloth of the blindfold. "I am very curious to see what you're hiding under here, if you're willing to show me."

"Oh, yes, of course," K'thriss scrambled to untie the bandage, hands shaking ridiculously as he tried and failed to undo the knot. _I need time to think about this anyway,_ he thought. _I should reconsider. I really should._

He knew he wouldn't.

"Allow me," Gol offered, moving behind K'thriss and brushing the drow's fumbling fingers aside. The cloth fell away and the illithid pulled K'thriss backwards, pillowing his head in his lap. "Extraordinary," Gol murmured, staring at the sunken sockets marred with ragged scars.  Deep within the hollowed cavities where the warlock's eyes had been glimmered tiny, budding red crystals. A questing tendril reached in and trailed along the edge of one of the gems.

K'thriss gasped. The sensation was indescribable. A flood of pleasure, pain, memory, energy. It was beyond a physical sensation. Beyond even present sensation. As though he was in multiple times and places at once, experiencing each simultaneously. Gol's face came into focus, fractal and glowing radiant in a strange new kind of vision. _Psychic energy?_ the objective portion of his mind theorized, while the rest of him gibbered and moaned.

"Are you all right? Tell me honestly," Gol was saying. "K'thriss?" There was worry in their voice.

"More," K'thriss murmured. " _More."_

The tentacle brushed over the ragged skin a second time and he was transported, split into a thousand pieces, a thousand selves. He heard himself cry out, and he was back again.

"Remember," Gol insisted, "Just one word. I will not be angry with you. Not in the slightest."

"S-sensitive," K'thriss tried to assure him, but most language seemed unavailable to him at the moment. He rallied for another attempt. "Sensitive…but _good._ "

"Ah," said Gol, as though it explained everything. "In that case…" K'thriss saw all four squirming appendages descend towards his face. They writhed and twined about his flesh, enveloping his vision, caressing each inch of skin and crystal from every angle. His body jerked against the weight of Gol's hands on his shoulders. He gasped and screamed, pleaded and groaned, spoke in tongues. He was coming apart, lost, disintegrating. The sheer _sensation_ of it!

He coalesced once more with his head in Gol's lap, gulping air, heart pounding. Exhilarated and wrung out. Most of the tentacles had withdrawn, all but one, which looped lazily back and forth across his neck.

"Perhaps we should postpone our other plan," Gol said. "This seems like plenty for the evening."

" _No,_ " K'thriss panted. "I _want_ to. Please!" _Take me to a place I actually want to go. Let me walk on the edge of that inevitability,_ he thought desperately, not knowing how to express it. How to put into words this longing.

Gol seemed to understand. "I will be careful," the carver said.

"I know," K'thriss said. He'd never been more certain of anything in his life.

Gol ran their thumb across the drow's forehead. "Relax. Let down your walls. I swear I will not go anywhere you do not wish me to be. Whatever secrets you carry, they will remain your own."

K'thriss let out a slow breath. He wasn't sure what the illithid meant. He considered the problem by arcane means, not psychic ones. _How do I let you in?_ he thought, with _Awakened Mind._

 _This will do,_ came the reply. _It is a reasonable basis for a bridge. A little rudimentary, but perhaps someday we shall see if you can learn a more refined approach._

 _Yes,_ K'thriss thought eagerly, and for a moment became distracted with bits of remembered lore, theories, proofs.

A tendril wrapped around his neck, carefully avoiding his larynx, and _squeezed._ All thoughts fled his mind. The pressure increased. His breath came shorter, giddiness flooding his body as oxygen was cut off from his brain. He floated on a wave of euphoria. _Yes. Yes!_ He'd worried that it would feel like the choker Rosie used on him, but it was nothing like that. Nothing at all. That was to control him, stop him, curb his desires. This, he chose. This was not to bind him, but to free him.

_Take me to a place I actually want to go._

That choker would always remind him of this. He could never let Rosie know. Never. She might be appalled. Worse, she might be _amused._ She might tease him about it, and this was special, it was too special. He couldn't --

The pressure eased off and he whined. It had been only a taste. He wanted to go farther. Much farther.

"Why?" he asked, when he had sufficient air to speak. "Why did you stop?"

 _You are worrying too much about other things,_ Gol chided, not bothering to speak in words.

K'Thriss felt his cheeks warm. "You…you heard that?"

 _Your concerns are very loud. Perhaps I should do more to distract you?_ A second tendril just skimmed the edge of one crystal facet. His entire body contorted with pleasure, pain, sensation. _I take it, that this is an unusual response?_ Gol asked.

 _Very,_ K'thriss replied. _If the blindfold did that, I'd never get anything done._

K'thriss heard Gol chuckle in his mind. Strangely, it sounded far more humanoid inside his head than when expressed in the air. _How intriguing._

 _Perhaps an interplay between psychic and arcane energies?_ K'thriss mused. _Or a latent influence of your god on --_

 _Let's focus on the task at hand,_ Gol stopped him mid-thought. _Though I do wish to experiment more thoroughly in the future. Unless you'd like to stop now?_ The tentacle around K'thriss' neck began to withdraw, but the warlock grabbed it before it could get very far.

"No," K'thriss said. "I'm here."

 _Very good,_ Gol replied. The pressure resumed. K'thriss moaned as it did so, leaning back into the soft skin of the illithid's lap, pressing against something that was not so soft. He tilted his head, tongue flicking out. He felt Gol shudder with arousal. _Appreciated, but another time. This is too important for anything less than my full attention,_ the carver said.

K'thriss recklessly darted his tongue out once more, feeling giddy, but another tendril came down and turned his head away. He didn't resist, just floated, spots of color appearing in his enhanced vision. _Gol could kill me_ , he thought, and a warm certainty filled his chest. _He could, but he won't._ His body shuddered, thrashed, insisting he was dying, he needed air, yet he'd never felt so safe. So certain everything would be all right.

Then a tendril caressed the sensitive skin around his eyes, and his awareness simply exploded.

He was a hundred, a thousand, a million drow warlocks. Different selves, different times, different places. All of them on the edge of death. Each in their final moments of life. He felt their consciousness slipping away, some surprised, some exuberant, every feeling in between. There were those that clung to life, fought for it, paid dearly for each moment. The thrum of their resolve filled him, emboldened him. They were so _alive_ in that moment, even as they slipped away and dissolved. Others embraced death as a lover, content. Their relief washed over him like a panacea, a promise. Some day. There were bright notes of contentment and joy, bitter undertones of despair and fury. It was a feast of experiences. He was all of them. He was everything.

 _This is all I can be,_ he thought. _Infinite possibilities._

_Not so inevitable after all._

He drifted with that thought. Exalted. Utterly at peace. His breathing came easily. He did not know when the pressure had ceased, only that it had. He noted with mild surprise that he was, in fact, glad. To walk along the edge of death was an experience unlike any other, but to live…In this place without pain, without worry, living had its own appeal. He felt a hand smoothing across his brow. Back and forth. There was a sound. A vibration. Melodic. He could not tell if it was in his mind or if he heard it with his ears. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and the music stopped.

"Were you singing?" he tried to ask, but his throat was not up to the task. He coughed instead, hand coming up to touch his neck. The skin burned, flushed and raw.

"Leaving a mark is unavoidable, I'm afraid," Gol said.

"Mmm," replied K'thriss sleepily, finding his voice. "It will fade."

His limbs felt heavy. It seemed a monumental effort to shift them, but he managed to sit up.

"Is there something I can do for you?" he asked. Gol leaned against his back.

"I was with you, remember?" Gol replied. "I have never experienced such a thing. It was…"

"Indescribable?" K'thriss provided, and the illithid nodded.

"Extraordinary," Gol agreed.

"Also a good word," the warlock agreed.

"I was speaking of you," said the illithid, wriggling his tentacles across K'thriss' back playfully. The drow snorted.

"Still, next time, we'll do something more to your tastes," K'thriss said.

"If you insist," said Gol.

* * *

Awareness crept in gently, sounds of the fire and snoring intruding gradually. He breathed in deeply and sat up. His heart felt light. Somehow, nothing appeared so dire anymore. He'd seen the end for him, every end there could be. None of them would be so remarkable, but all would be glorious in their own way. He would do what he could in the time he had and be content.

"Another _novel_ dream?" commented Rosie. His heart picked up a tick. _Why do I keep falling asleep on her watch?_ he wondered.

"Mm hm!" he confirmed, doing his best to look innocent. His hand came up to his neck, but there was no evidence of a mark there. It had just been a dream, after all. He felt a little wistful at the realization.

"I almost woke you up," Rosie said. "I could have sworn for a moment you stopped breathing."

"Oh? Really? I've heard that can happen. A condition. It's very common. You didn't need to worry." K'thriss assured her, but she didn't seem convinced. "Well! Good night!" he said, and turned away from her.

"K'thriss? What is it you can't let me know about?"

He froze. "What?" he asked.

"You said it in your sleep."

"Oh. Hmm. Sorry, can't remember!" he lied desperately.

"Uh huh."

"Well! Good night!" he said again, as though it were a magic spell that could neatly end the conversation. Thankfully she let it drop.

Once more, he ran his fingers across his throat. Smooth, cool skin. Not even a bruise would be there tomorrow. No evidence of what he'd experienced. It seemed…sad, somehow.

 _If you like, I could give you a real mark to remember,_ Gol murmured in his mind as K'thriss drifted into a deep, satisfying sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asphyxiation was one of the more obvious K'thriss kinks, given the choking collar, but having now researched it I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention that it is hella dangerous. All the risks K'thriss mentions are real ones. If breath play turns your crank, please educate yourself, find ways to reduce your risks, and NEVER try it alone.


	3. Enduring Mark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kink the Second: Marking/Body Modification
> 
> Also angst and the power of friendship.

"Look, all I'm saying is, it's a little weird," Walnut's defensive grumble roused him from his doze. K'thriss didn't trouble himself to stir, only listened. The beetled continued to lumber through the Underdark as the others spoke around him.

"So he's sleeping a lot. So what? I sleep all the time," Donaar said from Clarkmoore's back. "I'd be sleeping right now, if I could."

"You're _supposed_ to sleep," Walnut countered. "You're not an elf. We're different."

Donaar's armor clinked as he shrugged. It was such a familiar gesture that K'thiss could see it perfectly in his mind's eye. "Hey, I dunno, maybe back off? He's going home. I know that's a big deal to you, but it's not something everybody's happy about, okay?"

Walnut huffed. "What do you think, Rosie?"

"We all cope with stress in our own ways," the halfling said. "What's important is he knows we're here for him."

"So…" Donaar said, "should we say something to him?"

"If he doesn't know already, he's never gonna," Walnut dismissed the idea. "I don't see how some dumb speech would change that."

"Sometimes it _is_ important to put things into words, dear," Rosie said. "Or do you and Brahma never talk?"

"UGH, we're NOT talking about Brahma AT ALL right now, Grandmother," Walnut declared. The party faded into silence for a moment.

"Okay, but can we discuss brunch, maybe?" Donaar asked. "There's gotta be a brunch place around here somewhere, right?"

"Brunch! BRUNCH!" repeated Tas-T. K'thriss felt the vibration of the goblin jumping up and down through the beetle's back.

The warlock let his consciousness slip away into dreams.

* * *

 

"Welcome back," Gol said.

The dais was covered in sheets of vellum, each with a marking on it. K'thriss convinced Gol to compare notes on known Tetrathanotica glyphs and they'd been at it most of the day. The warlock committed new ones to memory, awakened, and frantically scribbled down what he'd learned before returning to sleep. He was finding the barrier between dreaming and wakefulness a challenge. It garbled information, and try as he might, he couldn't quite recall exactly how the lines looked. He'd transcribe the image of each glyph as faithfully as he could, yet they would have no meaning once he wrote them. It was unspeakably frustrating, but not surprising. Still, he persisted, if only for the principle.

Gol seemed distracted. Perhaps even irritable, although K'thriss wasn't sure he was reading the illithid correctly. The carver traced a long, thin finger over something on the dais, but they covered it with a spare sheet of paper as K'thriss approached.

"Sorry," K'thriss said. "An outside discussion. Not important."

"What about?"

K'thriss sighed. "My…friends. Companions? Work associates, they'd probably say. They're worried about me."

"Good," said Gol. "So am I."

"Why?" K'thriss asked.

"A few days ago you were terrified of Guallidurth. Now you don't seem to care."

"Oh, it's fine. We'll hardly spend any time there. In and out, no trouble at all," K'thriss said, smiling beatifically.

" _That_ kind of thinking is _exactly_ what has me worried," Gol's tentacles snapped tightly in frustration.

"You'd rather I be afraid?"

"I'd rather you be _present,"_ Gol said. "Burying yourself in these distractions," they gestured at the piles of paper. "It won't let you avoid my question forever."

"Knowledge is never a waste of time," K'thriss tried to pick up the paper, curious about what was hidden under it, but Gol slapped it down.

"You don't fear death at Guallidurth. So what _is_ it that you're afraid of?" the illithid asked.

"I…" the bland smile faltered, just slightly. "I'd rather not say."

Gol shook their head. "Keep your secrets, then," they said. The carver stood. "I cannot indulge this avoidance any longer today. My army grows restless if I am gone too long." Gol moved to walk by him, but paused. The illithid placed a warm hand on K'thriss' shoulder. "When you are ready, I will be here, Brother. But only when you are ready." The illithid left the dais and vanished into the dark.

K'thriss regarded the abandoned dais with no change in his pleasant, almost vacant expression. Finally, he stepped forward, pushing back the abandoned papers. Carved into the stone were three lines, pulsing with psychic energy. Qualith, the secret writing system of the mind flayers. It was always drawn with four lines, much like the Tetrathanotica glyphs, but where those were scrawled in blood, Qualith was imbued with magical energy. Few outside of the illithid could read it. Most who tried went mad. K'thriss was already regarded by many as mad, so that was no concern, and he'd always had the most exceptional eyes.

He traced the lines with his finger, his altered vision detecting sparks and whorls of strange energy pulsing along the length of each. _Seeker. Brother. Friend…_

There was no fourth line. Without it, the writing was simply a collection of concepts, not a complete thought. A piece of it was missing.

 _How appropriate,_ K'thriss thought, his smile never changing. 

* * *

 

K'thriss spent the rest of the day, or what passed for a day in the Underdark, awake.  Yet he said little. When he did speak, it was in a placid tone, often simply to confirm Tas-T indeed directed their beetle steed toward Guallidurth. When they stopped to make camp, he mechanically assisted with chores. When there was nothing left to be done, he settled on a rock with face pointed towards the fire, expression unceasingly pleasant and blank. Eventually Donaar approached.

"Scoot over," Donaar demanded. K'thriss slid to the side without objection. In order to make sufficient room for the dragonborn, the drow could only partially perch on the very edge of the rock he'd occupied. Donaar sat down with a proprietary air. "Tas-T found this for me," he said, holding up a large pale chunk of fungus sporting a sizable bite mark. "It's not bad, actually. Guess the little guy is good for something."

"Oh, I would not eat --" K'thriss began, but as fast as one could say "Gastrointestinal inflammation," Donaar had wolfed down nearly the entire wedge, all but a small piece the size of Rosie's fist. The dragonborn grabbed one of K'thriss' hands and shoved the remaining scrap into it. "Here," Donaar said. "Saved you some."

K'thriss already had an entry for this particular specimen in his mental _Edibles and Oddities of the Underdark_ catalog. He had absolutely no intention of experiencing it a second time. As soon as Donaar looked away, he tossed it over his shoulder. Behind him, he heard Tas-T sniff twice, then scrabble with a clatter of claws over dirt and stone to fall upon the discarded fungus with a ravenous snarl. Perhaps the goblin and Donaar shared a digestive fortitude which the drow lacked. He quietly hoped so. Otherwise the paladin was in for a very uncomfortable night. Donaar looked back at him and K'thriss covered his mouth, pretending to chew.

"Mmm. So good," he said as if his mouth was full. He made a point to swallow loudly, then patted his stomach.

Donaar smiled delightedly. "I know, right? Might add it to the Yum Yum Hut menu. You'd like that, huh? Get a little of that…Underdark flavor? A taste of home?"

"Home," the word felt foreign in his mouth. "Sure."

Donaar leaned back, tapping claws against the rock. K'thriss shifted his weight over to his other leg and debated whether sitting on the ground would be superior to maintaining his partial perch.

"Listen," Donaar began, glancing over at Walnut and Rosie as they chatted together near the beetle. Donaar lowered his voice a little. "I know what you're going through. When we were traveling to Skolla, I was…" Donaar searched for an appropriate phrase, "kinda tense."

K'thriss would not have described the foaming, hyperventilating creature he'd shared the cart with as merely "tense," but he let it pass. "Only a little," K'thriss told him.

"Right, yeah. But see, you were there. I mean, I did most of the work, of course. Me. Also Clarkmoore," he tilted his head back. "Rosie helped a little, I guess. So, I mean, you didn't exactly _do_ much, but you were there. And I…" Another person might have said something like "appreciated it" or "thank you," but Donaar, being of noble dragonborn stock, finished with "…noticed. Which, I mean, that's a big deal. I hardly notice anyone."

This part at least was true.

"What I'm saying is," Donaar continued. "You were _there._ And now we're going to _your_ hometown. The good ol'…dad sacrificin' stomping grounds. And we're _here._ You hear what I'm saying?"

Donaar paused a split second, not quite long enough for K'thriss to draw breath to answer him, then clapped his hands on his knees and stood. "Well," the dragonborn said, "Good talk," and walked away.

"Good talk," K'thriss echoed. Eventually the warlock abandoned his perch, curling up on the other side of the rock away from the fire. He drew his cloak around him and without intending to, fell asleep.

* * *

 

The dais was as he'd last seen it. Abandoned. Papers scattered about like discarded trash. Gol was nowhere in sight. K'thriss set about collecting the scraps of knowledge, but he found that they had degraded in this dream space. The ink had run into meaningless scribbles. He couldn't read a single one. They might as well be a collection of worthless drawings from a child. Frustrated, he threw himself down into one of the chairs. He resisted flinging the collected sheets across the room, instead placing them neatly on top of the dais' smooth surface. That's when he noticed the three unfinished lines of Qualith still etched in the table. They seemed untouched by the corrosive properties of the dream, their partial message still burning with psychic light to his learned eyes. _Seeker…Brother…Friend…  
_

What could the last line be? _Betrayer_ came to mind. _Deceiver. Faithless. Thief. Discarded. Worthless. Stupid. STUPID._

In the waking world, K'thriss rarely gave over to rage. The dream space gave him little choice. It responded faster than he could control it. The ground beneath him shuddered, buckled, and burst. Writhing whips of amethyst cracked jet black stone as though it were an egg shell. Massive tentacles towered high above him, crested, and thundered down upon the dais with a shattering crash. They smashed and slashed at the stone in a frenzy, obliterating it, chips flying past his face, cutting his skin. Blood oozed from stinging slashes down his face and his legs. He opened his arms wide for more. Dust filled his mouth and coated his tongue. It was all he could do to maintain his footing as the tentacles wrecked their way across the room, leaving nothing intact.

At last, their wrath spent, the tentacles burrowed through heaps of rubble back into the ground. The tremors subsided.

K'thriss was bleeding from over a dozen small wounds, but none were enough to really hurt him. The pain felt remote. Unreal. He took a faltering step across the leveled landscape, nearly rolling his ankle on an errant shard of loose stone. Looking down, he was shocked to see three etched lines glowing in the dust. Inexplicably, despite this cataclysm, the unfinished symbol survived. For a moment, he felt an odd sense of kinship with it. In the next instant, utter loathing consumed him. He raised his staff above the symbol, intent on smashing it to pieces.

The tip of the staff trembled. Then fell it fell from his hands, clattered to the floor, and vanished. With it went his sight. He fell to his knees before the shard and let the silence swallow him.

* * *

 

There were footsteps in the dark. The clatter of loose bits of jagged rock. Slowly growing nearer, making their way through debris. A rustle of cloth. A silent presence.

K'thriss said nothing. Neither did Gol.

The warlock's fingers traced the three lines carved on the sharp chunk of stone in his hand. Over and over, the same three lines. The silence pressed down on him. He dreaded what Gol might say, but hearing nothing was just as unbearable. He felt the illithid's eyes on him with an acuity that was almost pain.

"This is incomplete," K'thriss said. His fingers continued their manic tracing.

Still, Gol was silent.

"I learned very early that people only care about me as long as I am _useful_ ," K'thriss didn't mean to keep talking, but he felt compelled to fill the void with words, any words, even ones he didn't want to say. "My father taught me that. He made it very clear as his blood ran out. And I tried. I tried _so hard_ , gathered _so much_ knowledge, but it was never _enough_." He gripped the stone so tightly that the sharp edges of the shard cut into his palm. "I was always _missing_ something _._ Like I was born unfinished."

"I was not birthed as you were, but I would not say I felt complete when I came into this world either," Gol remarked.

"Do you have parents?" K'thriss asked.

"Not as you know them," Gol answered.

"They're supposed to care about their children. I've seen it. Even if those children are irresponsible, reckless, or just plain _embarrassing._ No matter how many driebus errors they make." Gol did not correct his slip of the tongue. K'thriss continued unabated, "A parent might be furious, but they still _care._ So what was it, about me, that made that impossible?" He held up the stone with its unfinished glyph like a talisman. "What is it that I'm missing?" he hissed.

Gol gently pried the sharp shard from K'thriss' shaking hands. "Why do you assume the imperfection yours?" the carver asked.

"Because -- because otherwise it was all just -- _pointless._ Cruelty without cause. Random. At least -- if it was my fault," breath heaved out of him in gulps. "Then what I do still _matters."_

There was the sound of ripping cloth. K'thriss flinched as Gol took his hand and began wrapping a bandage around it. The warlock willed his fingers to stop trembling, but they would not obey him.

"How long," K'thriss swallowed, his bravery briefly failing him. He pressed on, "Until I'm no longer useful to you?"

"You assume you have a _use_ to me already," Gol said gruffly.

"Oh," K'thriss' voice sounded faint, even to his own ears. He pulled his hand free of Gol's grasp, untied bandage ends trailing in loops. He struggled to a standing position, sketched a loose bow out of habit. "Thank you for your time," he murmured. He turned to go, unsure how he'd navigate the broken ground without staff or sight, but determined to make his way.

"Where are you running to, K'thriss?" Gol asked.

The warlock stiffened. "I'm not running," he said. "If I'm of no use, I shouldn't be here." He tried to move away, but his shin banged into a hunk of rock. Gritting his teeth, he located the obstacle with his hands and moved to walk around it.

"Don't you want to know the last line?" Gol's voice echoed strangely through the broken room.

K'thriss stilled. The unfinished glyph was a riddle that he did not know the answer to. Every moment spent here grew increasingly painful, a restriction in his chest that weighed him down, but the promise of knowledge was something he could never resist. Slowly, he turned to face Gol, sightless, reaching out his hand. The illithid returned the stone to his still bleeding palm, folding thin, warm fingers over K'thriss' cold, shaking ones. A single tentacle descended from Gol's face, sharpened to a point, and dug into the stone. Psychic energy flared in K'thriss' sight, brilliant and blinding. He squinted, but even his unusual eyes could not follow the motion. The tentacle withdrew, leaving a completed glyph.

_Seeker. Brother. Friend._

K'thriss stared at the final line. He could comprehend its meaning as a piece of language, but not accept it as a concept. It made no sense.

_Beloved._

K'thriss traced the gouges in the stone with his fingers. As he did, thoughts and feelings flooded his mind. _Warmth, fondness, wonder, exasperation,_ he quickly pulled his hand back.

"I don't…understand," he said.

"The word means --" Gol began.

"I can _read,"_ K'thriss snapped. "It's just Qualith. It's not that hard. I mean, what is it for? Who is it for?"

"Don't pretend to be obtuse," Gol chided.

"I'm not _beloved._ Not to anybody."

"I think you'll find many who disagree," Gol insisted.

K'thriss scoffed.

"After our last…shall we call it a tryst? You seemed regretful that no physical reminder remained upon waking," Gol said. "I composed this for that purpose."

K'thriss touched his neck and found it wet with blood. The cuts didn't even sting anymore. He flicked his hand, scattering droplets to the stone. "This is a dream," K'thriss said. "It will vanish when I wake. Like everything else."

"No. Qualith is more than the rudimentary marks of other languages. It contains a psychic imprint of meaning," Gol said. "Even when you are awake, it will remain."

"No.  When I find it gone, all it will confirm was none of this was real," K'thriss replied, throat tight.

If Gol had eyebrows, at this point K'thriss was sure they'd be raised. "It is very real to me. Is it not for you?" the illithid asked.

"I allowed myself to dream. To pretend other possibilities existed, before Guallidurth strips them away and I remember what I am. This is where it ends. _Beloved_ is too unbelievable, even for a dream."

"Then the choice is yours." The carver paced, kicking debris aside with agitation. "Risk that this might all be true or walk away convinced it was a fantasy." The footsteps stopped. Silence descended between them once more.

K'thriss tried to walk away, but his feet refused to obey him. His entire body was in rebellion. His fingers trailed over the symbol etched in the stone, now finished. This was folly. An indulgence he could not afford, not where he was going. _But it would be nice,_ he thought, _to believe. Even for a moment._ He took a step forward, feet sliding on unseen and unstable footing. Another. The ground slid out beneath him, broken stone scattering. Blindly he threw out his arms, instinctively trying to catch himself as he fell.

Gol was there. Warm arms around him. Safe, impossibly safe. He allowed himself to relax, savoring the embrace. _It has been a good dream,_ K'thriss thought. _Even if it's over._

"Did you decide?" Gol asked.

K'thriss proffered his off hand, palm down. "Yes."

They sat together, clearing bits of jagged stone until they could settle in reasonable comfort.

Gol ran his thumb across the back of K'thriss' hand. "Are you sure you want the marking here?" the carver asked. "It will be very painful."

"I am no stranger to pain," the warlock replied.

"It will also be permanent," Gol continued. "You're certain you won't regret it?"

K'thriss shook his head. He did not argue about the mark enduring beyond this fleeting moment. "I have plenty of permanent scars," he said. "None of them remind me of anything pleasant. Yours at least would be a change of pace."

"This is not a joke," Gol snapped his tentacles.

K'thriss put his hand on Gol's shoulder. "I want you to do it. Even if the mark does not last, I'm certain the experience will be worth having."

"And if it does last?"

"Then…" K'thriss tried to imagine such an outcome. "I would be pleased to bear it." He didn't have words for what it would mean. It was too impossible a thought.

His answer seemed enough for Gol. A tentacle extended downward, sharpening, the glow of psychic energy gathering once more. K'thriss tried to see past the light this time, to discern the flow of energy and its function. The tip dug into his skin, directly over one of the bones on the back of his hand. He hissed, clenching his free hand around the layers of cloth covering Gol's shoulder. The pain was not the worst he'd experienced and it faded on a wave of giddy elation. His heart pounded. He leaned forward, resting his head on Gol's shoulder, feeling light-headed. After the rush of sensation, thoughts followed.

_Seeker. Loss. Bereft. A holy place unmade. The weight of prophecy. Alone. Outcast. No guide, no help, no recourse. Grim determination. Battle. Dominance. Isolation. Loneliness. Power._

K'thriss gasped as memories from the illithid washed over him, his hand burning. They were far too similar to his own. Past experiences bubbled up from where he hid them, mingling with the carver's. Images of mobs, stones, and fire flickered through his mind. Survival, hiding, humiliation. He abandoned pride and dignity, replaced them with play-acting and obsequience. Scorned, hounded, he learned to reflect what people most wanted to see, grateful for the smallest scraps of grudging tolerance.   

"It hurts," he said through gritted teeth.

"Do you want me to stop?" Gol asked.

"No," K'thriss said. "I finish what I start."

The second tentacle came down.

The physical pain was worse this time. The bone of his hand felt pierced through, the gouge a line of fire. There was a second wave of elation, but he could not drift in it, afraid of the next dose of memories. He braced himself.

_Brother. A meeting. Surprise. Relief. Recognition. Quarrels. A path no longer walked alone. An end to isolation. A gift of common purpose. A mantle passed on._

The shift in emotion caught him unaware. He was buoyed up on it, the pain fading to a numb throb. His own memories began as small, fragile things. Empty placeholders for more meaningful connections. Velvet. Glowman. Invented friends. Ligotti, servant and construct, but only at first. Hussar, the Lizard King, pleased by his company, brief though it might be. He wanted to let the growing sense of connection fill him, to invite others into his thoughts, but beneath the companionship was an undercurrent of fear. Betrayal. Disappointment. Insecurity. Omin, untrustworthy at best, saboteur at worst, viewed him as a pawn. To Davine he'd been an obstacle, nothing personal in her attempt to kill him. To Kiwi, K'thriss had been useful for a night, and then no longer. He did not matter to any of them.

He feared going any deeper. K'thriss choked down a whimper, didn't let it past his lips, but Gol seemed to hear it all the same. A hand came up, caressed his face. K'thriss was absurdly grateful he had no eyes, and thus had lost the capacity for tears. One less indignity.

"Let it go," Gol said. K'thriss released a shuddering sigh, and tried for their sake.

The third tentacle descended.

It was excruciating. A searing pain. Ringing in his ears. He could not get enough air. His face felt flushed, his skin drenched in sweat. Vulnerable, raw, his mind too open, and into this vessel flowed a torrent of Gol's thoughts.

_Friend. Common ground. Equal. Fondness. Affection. Interest. Sympathy. Concern. Discovery. Joy. Joy. Joy._

_We are joy,_ K'thriss thought, and in this realm of dreams the vision from the Myconids of Nemezir returned to him with full clarity. The pain vanished, leaving nothing but peace. He floated in a vast space, yet knew he was not alone. Rosie pointed out constellations to him, her face filled with delight. They found a common pleasure in the naming of things. Walnut walked with him side-by-side, into the gullet of a god, united in purpose. He discovered an anchor in her unyielding solidity. Flashes of Donaar, a diffuse, but consistent comfort. In the quiet moments, without observers, they talked. Exchanged small stories. Played games. Joked and made plans. _I could fix those for you. Your eyes, I mean._ Finn and K'thriss whiled away hours in the crow's nest, discussing the finer points of an Obviator's role, tackling ever more elaborate intellectual challenges.

K'thriss smiled. The first genuine smile he'd allowed himself all day. His breathing grew even. Gol's shoulder beneath his head was distant, yet solid.  He sighed with contentment.

"Are you ready for the next?" the carver asked.

"Yes," K'thriss heard himself say, but as the tendril neared his skin he realized this would also be the last. It would be over. He would wake up and the illusion would be broken, the pretense shattered. K'thriss would no longer be able to fool himself. He gripped Gol tightly in a half embrace, shaking. He didn't want to let go. He didn't want it to end. He felt the dream thinning, disintegrating beneath his fingers, and he clung to the pieces desperately.

Both memories and pain slammed into him simultaneously, sundering his control. His body convulsed. _Beloved. Passion. Desire. They explored one another. Walked along the edge of death and rediscovered what it was to live. Changed. Transcendent. Remarkable. Extraordinary. Precious. Cherished._

Feelings too large for simple words to adequately describe, each of them unfathomable as The Ur. They were beyond him, utterly beyond him, but he wanted to understand. He wanted to linger in this place until he could grasp their meaning. Instead pain shredded his mind and the dream fractured. Gol's shoulder became immaterial under his fingers. Loss tore him to pieces, utterly bereft, and he knew it was over.

He screamed.  _  
_

* * *

 

"He's awake. Grandmother, he's awake!"

K'thriss felt a hand on his shoulder. He spat out a scrap of leather that someone had put in his mouth and groaned.

"What's going on with you, drow?" Walnut snapped at him, giving him a shake.

"What…happened?" he asked. He felt dazed.

"You wouldn't wake up. Also you were SCREAMING in your SLEEP!" Walnut's voice only got that harsh when she was truly worried. "How is ANYBODY supposed to sleep through THAT?"

A grating, draconic snore cut her off before she could continue. K'thriss felt her pause. Donaar muttered in his sleep. His stomach made an obscenely loud gurgling noise, and he let loose a gigantic belch. _Gastrointestinal inflammation,_ K'thriss reflexively noted for his catalog, _somewhat less severe for dragonborn._

"Well," Walnut said, and K'thriss could perfectly picture her deep frown of disgust. "Anybody _normal,_ " she amended, and pushed K'thriss into a sitting position, holding him there with one muscular arm. Ligotti curled around his shoulders protectively, nipping at his ear. Through his familiar's eyes, he saw Rosie studying him.

"We've tried to be patient, dear, but something is clearly wrong," she said. "Speaking in tongues, sleeping day and night, and that looked like a seizure to me. You know you can talk to us about it, right?"

He scrubbed at his face with his off hand, not sure what to say. He'd never thought his idle experiments with dreaming could possibly affect him so. The loss and accompanying grief were overwhelming. How could he begin to explain?

"I'm not sure I can," he said wearily, letting his hand drop to his lap.

Glowing from the back of his hand, iridescent and brilliant, were four lines of a complete glyph.

His entire body stiffened. _Impossible._

Walnut felt the tension in his shoulders immediately and glanced around, assessing the dark beyond their fire for threats. "What? What is it?"

He held up his hand. The marks shined clearly. "You don't…see anything?"

Rosie squinted at him, taking his raised hand gently in her own. She turned it over, once, twice.

"I don't _see_ anything," Rosie said. "But there is…a feeling."

Walnut batted at the back of his hand like a cat.

"I don't feel anything special," the druid declared after a few rough paws of his skin. "Is it bad? Does it hurt?"

He pulled his hand back, cradling it against his chest. Did it hurt? His hand felt fine, but he couldn't put words to his emotions.

"It didn't feel bad to me," Rosie said. "Almost…holy? No, that's not quite the right word."

"Holy," Walnut repeated skeptically, and then looked him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow, clearly perturbed to think of "holy" and "K'thriss" in the same sentence. He shook his head.

"I need time to think," he said.

Rosie patted his knee sympathetically. "If you need someone to talk to, we're here for you."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," he said.

Walnut made a furious, disgusted noise.  She stood, nearly toppling him backward as she shoved off his shoulder. "WE'RE TRYING TO SAY WE CARE ABOUT YOU, YOU DUMB DROW WEIRDO!" The words burst from Walnut like a roll of thunder. The druid glared down at him, hands opening and closing into fists. She folded her arms and looked away. "Just accept the offer, okay?"

"Okay?" he saw no choice but to agree. Walnut nodded once, curt, and stormed off.

Rosie stood. "I think you should get some rest," she said. "Maybe without any novel dreams for a while." She touched his shoulder lightly. "Don't worry, I'll take your watch." She glanced over at Donaar as he released another rumbling, extended belch. "Donaar's probably scared away everything out there by now." 

She left him to his thoughts. Experimentally, he ran four fingers over the lines on his hand. There was no pain, but Gol's memories cascaded through him, leaving his heart thrumming in his chest. The final word lingered. _Cherished._ His entire body felt warm. Wanted. Cared for.

 _I'm not_ beloved _. Not to anybody._

He looked to where Rosie stood staring out into the perpetual dark, surreptitiously casting glances his way. Between the concussive blasts of Donaar's snores, he heard Walnut grumbling to herself. He caught the word "drow" more than once.

_I think you'll find many who disagree._

Slowly, it occurred to him that he'd been wrong. About a lot of things. He traced the writing a second time, coming to terms with this revelation. Accepting its reality.

 _Now what?_ he wondered. He had no answer.

But it was not in K'thriss' nature to shy away from an unknown.


	4. Passing Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100% Bleth-grade downy soft fluff this time. Nothing kinky about this one. Well, unless you count Rosie just being herself.
> 
> Also please send help, I have work I'm supposed to be doing, but all I want to do is write more Weird Tentacle Romance.

"Walnut?"

"Yeah?"

"May I ask you something?" K'thriss inquired.

"Sure. What is it?" The druid turned around on the beetle's back to face him. They both swayed in tandem as the beast clambered across the steep rock. Tas-T bobbed in and out of view, perched upon the living prow of their insectoid conveyance. Ligotti was firmly wrapped around his master's shoulders, acting as his eyes, occasionally chirping or nipping his ear.

"When you and Brahma started," K'thriss waved his hand in a loop, searching for an appropriate term, "Commingling?"

Walnut's usual frown shifted a little, eyes widening and mouth thinning. K'thriss was unsure what this indicated. Sometimes the druid's expressions were harder to read than Gol's.

"K'thriss," she took a deep breath, pinched the bridge of her nose, released the breath, and faced him again. "Why are you asking me about this?"

"Just, curious. About," he looked down at the glyph burned into his hand, invisible to all eyes but his own. "Expectations. Was there a contract, or…?"

"What? No!" Walnut's gaze softened. "Although, we could have written one…" She trailed off for a moment, wetting her lips, her face slowly reddening. Then she coughed. "Huagh. But, no. No contracts. Those are only for official business."

"So you weren't official?" K'thriss asked.

"Oh, they were definitely _A Thing,"_ Rosie commented from her position behind Donaar, effortlessly perched on Clarkmoore's haunch.

" _GRANDMOTHER_!" Walnut's usual growl was somewhat less intimidating when it included an outraged squeak.

"What about you, Rosie?" K'thriss asked, transferring his attention to the most experienced member of their group. "You've been with…people. How did you know what you were supposed to do?"

"Are we talking sex, or relationships?" Rosie asked.

"Yes?" K'thriss replied, wondering that himself.

She shrugged. "Everyone is a little different," she said. "Some people want to talk. Some people want to fuck," her eyes darkened. Then she smiled. "Some people want a family. I don't think it matters, as long as everyone is honest about what they're after."

"What if not everybody knows? What they want, that is," K'thriss asked.

Rosie's keen eyes regarded him shrewdly, a knowing smile on her face. "Who is 'everybody' in this situation, exactly?" she asked.

K'thriss swallowed, feeling like an insect pinned against a board. "It's…a hypothetical question," he lied.

Her face softened. Her smile became less teasing and more sympathetic. "Well, then I would tell _everybody_ to take things slow." Her eyes glanced over at Walnut before returning to K'thriss. "Sometimes people turn out differently than we thought. Getting in too deep, too quickly…sometimes it means you get hurt." Rosie's expression became abruptly wicked, and she said in a stage whisper with a scandalous wink, " _That's why I recommend using lots of lube!"_

" _Grand_ mother!" Walnut squeaked again, face now as red as her armor.

"What?" Rosie said, in mock affront, "That's _always_ good advice." She nudged the dragonborn in front of her. "Right, Donaar?"

"Hm? What? Yes. No. That's what I always say," he drew himself up tall in the saddle and declared, authoritatively, as if it was the topic they'd been discussing all along. "Hygiene is important, you know."

Walnut snorted and turned her back on both K'thriss and the conversation, clearly done with the discussion. K'thriss did not feel they'd clarified much at all.

* * *

 

An hour later the idea to issue a _Sending_ occurred to him. It was quick, straightforward, to the point. It would clear up any doubts that this was all in his head. He traced the glowing glyph on his hand, and Gol's thoughts once again rippled through his mind. _Beloved._   No, it was real. He couldn't have done this to himself. Right?

His mind promptly spun out twelve different theoretical methodologies as to how, exactly, he could have done this to himself.

 _So if I used a Sending, I could just ask them,_ he thought. _Except that's almost sure to make Gol mad. They made their feelings pretty clear. But did they?_ K'thriss crossed his arms, hunching. _What if it IS all in my head? What if they have no idea what I'm talking about? Then I have to EXPLAIN what I'm talking about. No, death by embarrassment is NOWHERE on the list of preferred ways to die. Out of the question. Cannot ask them._

He nodded to himself, glad he had that cleared up. Then he frowned. _So…what do I say?_

He wrung his hands, head twitching side to side as he considered possibilities. Occasionally he'd mutter a word or two and shake his head.

_Heeeeyyyy. How are you? Had a good time last night…_

That was meaningless garbage. Didn't get to what he wanted to ask at all.

_What do you want?_

The tone on that was terrible. He tried it with different punctuation.

_What. Do. YOU. Want?_

No, NO, that was so much worse.

_How do I be a good…boyfriend?_

Was that what they were? Was that even the right word? What other words were there? Before he could think better of it, he realized he'd already asked Rosie for other words for "boyfriend."   His regrets were immediate and numerous.

"Special friend" was juvenile, "Significant Other" too clinical, "Boy Toy," very childish, "Lover" too vague, and "Fuck buddy" simply a bridge far too far. Also she was giving him That Look again. He withdrew his sight from Ligotti as soon as he noticed, but he could still feel it. Boring into his head as though she could hear every thought running through it.

Maybe she could. He needed to get this muttering thing under control.

_Beloved._

That was Gol's word, not his. Could he use it? Did he feel the same way? K'thriss had never felt this way at all. How was he to know what this emotion was?

 _Gol._ That worked. It was technically accurate and free of implication. Being, as it was, the illithid's name.

_Dear Gol. Dearest Gol. Carver Gol. Beloved Gol. To my new friend, Gol, for whom I am developing very confusing feelings, in part because until last night I thought I made up most of what happened between us…_

He mentally scratched out all of those.

 _Gol,_ he began again. Then he sighed hopelessly, cradling head in hand. _I don't know how to proceed,_ he thought. He felt a flash of impulse and let the _Sending_ loose.

The bottom of his stomach dropped out as he felt the spell engage. _Oh no. Oh no oh no no no WHAT DID I JUST DO?_

Seconds ticked by, each taking an interminable century to pass. He shifted anxiously on the back of the beetle. Wrung his hands. Thought about jumping off the beetle and just letting himself roll down the face of the crevasse. With luck, nobody would ever find his body. Once he'd talked himself out of _that,_ he realized he'd not signed his missive. So on yet another impulse that he moments later could only account for _AS AN UNBRIDLED ACT OF UTTER MADNESS_ he created a second _Sending_ that simply read:

 

_Love, K'thriss._

 

This prompted another extended consideration of the merits of the crevasse. He could probably get some extra momentum off the beetle's back if he timed it right.

He wished he'd never _Sent_ anything. He wished he knew what he was doing. He wished Gol wasn't _SO DAMNED FOND OF EXTENDED SILENCES._

 _How do you wish to proceed?_ finally came the carver's enigmatic response.

K'thriss groaned and threw himself down in a listless lump on the back of the beetle. This was torture. He was being toyed with. These were despicable mind games. Gol was taking delight in making this as difficult as possible, K'thriss could tell, that mind flaying _monster_.

By all gods great and small, he wanted to be in the illithid's arms right now _so much_ and he couldn't _stand_ it. _Can we just go back to the part where nobody could get hurt so we didn't have to ask any questions?_ he thought wistfully.

 _Coward,_ he called himself, moments later.

Fact, this was real. Fact, Gol considered K'thriss _Beloved._ So, given the facts, what did that mean? What did he want?

 _I want to make you happy,_ he _Sent_ back.

 _Your simple existence pleases me,_ came Gol's reply. _I do not see how making me happy is actionable. Or your responsibility._

 _THUNK THUNK THUNK_ went the back of K'thriss' head against the beetle's shell.

"What are you doing back there, drow?" Walnut groused.

"I'm dying," K'thriss moaned crossly. "I am actively wishing for death in this moment."

"Well do it quieter, would you? You're upsetting the beetle."

He sighed.

 _Of course I have a responsibility, now. After what happened. Last night,_ he _Sent._

 _How have things changed?_ Gol asked.

 _Because before I thought you were a figment of my imagination!_ K'thriss was feeling too vexed for second-guessing now. Not _before_ he sent his message, at least.

 _You have a truly incredible gift for self-delusion,_ came the response.

_Yes. Thank you. So good of you to notice. Stop laughing at me._

_How can you be sure I'm laughing at you?_

"I can feel it," K'thriss muttered to himself.

"What was that, dear?" Rosie asked.

"Nothing."

 _Are you…concerned about something?_ Gol had not waited for a reply this time. K'thriss mulled the question over, listening to the click of the beetle's feet as it found imperceptible catches in the stone.

 _I don't want to hurt you. I don't know what you want from me. I don't know if I…What if I don't have what you need?_ He looked at the glyph on his hand. _What if I'm not…what you think I am?_

He _Sent_ the entire mess of thoughts before he could question them.

And waited.

And _waited._

He took a deep breath. He was not in a dream, now. He could be patient. K'thriss mentally reviewed some unfinished proofs. Updated entries in his _Edibles and Oddities_ catalog. Did some breathing exercises.

 _I do not know how to answer your questions,_ Gol finally replied, _as I feel much the same. I am certain in my feelings for you, but I am uncertain as to the future. You ask me things as though we are unchanging beings. We may hurt each other. We may lack something the other needs. There is much you do not know of me, and I'm certain I will learn new things about you. I hope to. I hope you will always be a little bit of a mystery to me. So that I may always discover more of you. The alternative sounds very dull._

 _I'm a mystery to you?_ K'thriss asked.

 _Increasingly,_ Gol replied. This time K'thriss was certain he heard the illithid's strange chuckle. _But I enjoy that about you._

"Oh," K'thriss said aloud. Ligotti chirped and readjusted himself about K'thriss' shoulders.

 _Are you willing to explore these things with me?_ the carver asked.

 _Yes._ For once, K'thriss' reply was both easy and simple.

_Good. Now, I must go, Beloved. The goblins have played a prank on the trolls again and there's bound to be bloodshed. No surprises there. Alas._

The _Sending_ ended. K'thriss sat up, feeling as though a weight had been lifted from him. He realized he was smiling.

"You seem happy," Rosie observed.

"Yeah, well," K'thriss couldn't stop beaming, "I learned something today," he said.

"Ah," Rosie said, "That _is_ always cause for celebration."


	5. Giving Orders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fluffy chapter. About 95% naked banter, 5% innuendo and heated implications. As always, 100% Weird Tentacle Romance.

He'd eagerly anticipated their next meeting, but things kept coming up. They were both busy individuals. And when, at long last, they were able to find the time…

"Running an army is _exhausting_ ," Gol sighed, a rasping gurgle in his chest.

K'thriss didn't feel energized either. The past days had been wearying for more than just his tired body. He lay flat on the ground, head pillowed on his collected discarded garments. At first Gol had settled next to him, but as they'd talked, the illithid's naked limbs had slowly intertwined around his. It was so gradual that K'thriss wasn't entirely certain Gol was aware of it. By this point the illithid was on their side with one of K'thriss' arms behind their neck and shoulders. Each of the carver's arms, legs, and tentacles extended over and around some part of the warlock's body. It was like resting beneath a blanket of twining flesh. Under other circumstances such a sensation might feel restrictive, but this was Gol, so it was more novel and comforting. To be released, K'thriss need only say a word, and though disentangling would likely be an effort, he'd be free in moments.

"You don't like giving orders? Being obeyed all the time?" K'thriss asked.

"They require _constant_ instruction," Gol said, with an accompanying rumble that most resembled a cat's purr, as much as it resembled any surface animal. K'thriss wondered if that's how an illithid growled. Or whined. "The moment I dare to rest," Gol continued, "they manufacture ten more problems by the time I wake." The tentacles around K'thriss' shoulders twitched and curled, slowly twining farther down his arm.

"At least you're making the choices," K'thriss said. "To some, that's a luxury."

The purr-growl-whine returned. "There is nothing _luxurious_ about shouting down a horde just to make them follow basic sense," Gol said. The carver's voice took on a dark edge. "Sometimes I contemplate driving them into a ravine, just for a few paltry moments of peace. Not a single person asking me what to do."

"Well, I could boss you around instead, if you're so tired of giving orders," K'thriss joked.

Gol's body shook with their wet, coughing chuckle. "I'd like to see that," the illithid said.

"Oh, uh," K'thriss cleared his throat, taking on the higher pitched, nasal tone of one of the most intimidating Lolth priestesses he remembered from childhood. "You shall be honored to do my bidding, slave, for --"

"Slave?" Gol cut him off, sounding amused.

"Servant?" K'thriss proffered as an alternative.

"My talents do not lie in the realm of domestic chores."

"Vassal?"

"I supposed you'd want me to call you 'my Lord'?"

K'thriss made a face, "No, thank you. How about Soldier? Pursuing glory on the battlefield and in bed."

"How very Lolth of you," Gol commented.

"Well, what do you call those serving in your army?" K'thriss asked with a touch of exasperation.

The skin of Gol's skull flowed forward over their eyes like a gathering glared brow. "These days? _Expendable."_

K'thriss' arm reflexively tightened around Gol's shoulder. The glyph on his hand flared just slightly in the corner of his vision. "Not that one, then," K'thriss said. He cleared his throat again and resumed his commanding tone. "Gol! Insolent and contrary though you may be," K'thriss felt Gol's chuckle against his chest, "I demand you dedicate your numerous talents to pleasing me -"

"Well, that's vague," Gol interrupted once more. "How exactly should I please you?"

K'thriss paused. They were _A Thing_ now, as Rosie would call it. What were _Things_ like them supposed to do for each other?

"Uhm, you shall, you shall shower me with kisses!" he declared in his priestess impression.

"I have no lips and my saliva contains a corrosive compound that liquefies bone matter," Gol replied.

"Interesting!" K'thriss said in his own voice. "I mean," he switched back to the nasal tone, "That was a test! You should not - do - anything that melts my bones. Unless it is figurative, although I am not sure where that saying comes from exactly…" he trailed off. "You have gotten me distracted, insolent Gol! And for your punishment, you must fetch me…" he searched his memory for things that proper couples were supposed to do, "a dozen roses!"

"What is a rose?" Gol asked.

"A flower, with a lot of thorns. They have an excessive, sweet odor."

"Flower?"

"Never mind," K'thriss said, feeling increasingly put out. Courting rituals were not something he'd studied much. "You will…you will compose a song in my honor!"

"That may take some time," Gol said.

K'thriss smacked the illithid's back gently in exasperation, "You're not making this easy!"

Gol quivered. The tentacles that had wormed their way across K'thriss' chest and down his hip convulsed. "Do that again," Gol growled. "Harder."

K'thriss obediently raised his hand, but then paused.

"Did you just give me an order?" K'thriss asked.

"Force of habit," Gol replied dismissively. The illithid's body rose in temperature. K'thriss felt a ripple of anticipation shiver through the carver's muscles. "Do it again," Gol insisted.

K'thriss felt a smile spread across his face. "…No," he said, savoring the utterance. The word felt good in his mouth.

Gol blinked at him. "What?"

"No," K'thriss repeated, feeling a little giddy. "I was the one making decisions, remember?"

Gol leaned up, propping his elbow on K'thriss' chest to peer down at the drow's face. A tentacle trailed along K'thriss' mouth, tracing his grin.

"K'thriss," Gol said, mischief in his voice. "Kiss me."

"No. I need my skull intact, thank you."

"Remove this face hair on your chin," Gol continued, tentacle fussing with his beard.

"Absolutely not. It's part of the brand."

"Admit The Ur unworthy of your devotion."

"That's stupid. And no."

"Get me ten -- what was it called? Low-says?"

"Roses. And I refuse. They're awful. They don't even taste good."

Gol unleashed a litany of absurd demands. K'thriss did his best to maintain a straight face, but with every refusal he felt more giddy, and Gol's orders became progressively more outlandish and impossible. At last, his composure broke.

"I can't -!" K'thriss gasped through laughter. "That's not even -- anatomically possible --! How would you --?" He was unable to finish the thought, too overcome with mirth. He gave over to it until his stomach ached. Gol lay with head propped on K'thriss' chest, absorbing the vibration of his amusement.

"Feel better?" Gol asked when K'thriss could breath again.

"Yeah," K'thriss replied. "You?"

"Much," Gol answered, once more snuggling close, limbs entwining. "Perhaps next time," the illithid said, voice a low hum, "I shall give orders to you."

"Maybe," K'thriss replied with a grin. "If I feel like it."


	6. Elen'Cahl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for [Plans Within Plans pt 7, S2 Ep 8 of The "C" Team.](https://m.twitch.tv/videos/236339329)
> 
> Playing fast and loose with timelines on this one. A while back [a certain amazing artwork](http://fav.me/dbtsy44) by Nurse Normal showcased a host of intriguing K'thriss scars and I have incorporated a potential source for some of them here. Today's writing session was also driven largely by [this](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXxvNfwVoAAXdY_.jpg:large). Let's all just bask in Nurse Normal's greatness for a minute, yes? 
> 
> For content warnings, there's discussion of flogging, interpreted through a mind flayer lens, but no consummation of it. Also lots of spiders and some body horror farther down. Finally, I blame [@MaxwellsDeamon](https://twitter.com/MaxwellsDeamon) for introducing me to the [Drow Dictionary](http://www.eilistraee.com/chosen/language.php?page=common). Any linguistic complaints regarding my butchery of the language are therefore partially MaxwellsDeamon's responsibility as a result. Thanks for everything, you remarkable human creature.

Uncontrolled rage, in K'thirss' experience, was a poor survival tactic. Nothing painted a target on one's back like needless defiance dressed up as courage.

Sorrow only highlighted weak points. Showed others where to strike, what places were soft, which wounds remained tender.

Grief, regret, guilt. Paralytics. Undermining action, thought, and higher reason.

Chemical reactions. Useless responses of the flesh. What purpose could such feelings possibly serve?

He walked through the ruins of his former home as though a stranger. Tiny details tried to ensnare him, immerse him in recollection, prompt a response, but he pushed past each as though shredding ghosts. It was nothing more than common dust, stone, and rot. Material. Corporeal detritus. Meaningless refuse when viewed from a larger scale. Foolish to hold any attachment. Just things. Bodies. Flesh. Bones. Useless memories. The only part of the past worth retaining was the knowledge gained. The rest could be discarded, chaff from the grain.

K'thriss applied his will and mind to observing the responses of his body. The tightness in his chest he released, the glare of his brow he smoothed away. The beating of his heart, he quelled. He numbed his face, wiped away all signs of strain. Piece by piece he categorized each physiological reaction and removed it, entombing every accompanying emotion. Let them decay elsewhere, where they could do no damage to his cause. He had no time for them.

He followed the pull of Gol's focus and with every step turned his mind to the task at hand.

If he concentrated well enough, soon he'd feel nothing at all.

* * *

"You want me to hit you," K'thriss said, voice mild, "with a whip?" He maintained an unchanging smile, willing his fingers to loosen from where they clenched around the hard surface of his Ligotti staff.

"Yes. Very much so," Gol confirmed.

"That's not…" K'thriss made a face, wrinkling his nose. "I don't see the appeal," he remarked finally.

Gol scoffed. So much had happened since they'd last seen each other. From the moment K'thriss arrived in their shared dream space, the carver maintained a distance between them. Normally the illithid eagerly contrived to touch, but today they were oddly stand-offish. K'thriss wondered what could have changed with the carver. K'thriss certainly felt no different. Gol began pacing, hands clasped tightly behind their back, shoulders tense.

"Consuming a mind is one of the greatest pleasures for an illithid," Gol said.

Childhood stories rattled through K'thriss' memory, each one more gruesome than the last. _Mind flayers._ Despite himself, he shivered. "I am aware," he said.

"Did you know not all minds are the same?" Back and forth, Gol stormed with swift strides, gesticulating. "Analytical thought gives the meal structure. Body. Sustenance. Passion gives it flavor." The skin about Gol's eyes crinkled, his tendrils curling and unfurling in what K'thriss now understood as a satisfied smile. "Fury, joy, sorrow, these are what make a meal worth savoring. They are, in a literal sense, what give it personality."

"Hmm," K'thriss felt as though he'd lost his footing in a swift cave current. All cold water and hidden stones.

Gol stilled, looking into the distance. "A very long time ago, I devoured a drow soldier. This man detested one thing above all others. In his memory he called it _elen'cahl._ "

"I've eaten it," K'thriss said. It was a field ration, officially called _elen'cahallin_ , enduring food. Those with no choice but to subsist on the substance named it _elen'cahl_ , a nod to _elg'cahl_ , the word for poison. It was a tasteless, hardened paste that shattered when bitten and turned to a thick pulp when chewed. The best one could say about it was it was nutritional. _Elen'cahl_ dried out the mouth, sometimes leaving tiny cuts all over the tongue. It sat in the stomach like a stone, making it cramp, never quite taking the edge off hunger.

None of that was the worst part about _elen'cahl_. The worst part was just how dull it was. Oppressively flavorless. The kind of empty texture that made a person willing to eat poison just to taste _something_.

"For years, I've only fed on goblins," Gol said, his voice dark and filled with loathing. "They have barely any structure and even less passion. All fear and pain. Naught but prey. Nothing of the predator. No righteous fury, no challenge. They are _empty._ "

Gol looked at K'thriss hungrily, hands balled into shaking fists. "I am drowning in _elen'cahl_ , yet you come here reeking of pent up rage and wonder that I might desire a taste."

"Rage? I'm not -- I've been nothing but pleasant," K'thriss admonished, tone light.

Gol snorted. "I didn't say you misbehaved. I said you were _angry._ Whether you admit it or not, I can practically taste it." The illithid took a step forward, checked their motion, then took another, eyes glittering. "And selfishly, I want some for myself."

"And hitting you would do that?" K'thriss asked slowly, carefully neutral.

"There'd be a transfer of energy. Not as satisfying as a meal but," Gol's tentacles writhed, "a taste. One that would cause you no harm."

"You're worried about _my_ well-being?" K'thriss protested. "I could hurt you."

"You won't," Gol insisted. One more prowling step. The distance between them closed. K'thriss resisted the instinct to retreat in turn, keeping his features a serene calm.

"You saw what happened before," the warlock said quietly, nodding to where the dais once stood. They'd cleared away most of the broken stone, but still found overlooked shards. K'thriss felt a flare of bitterness in his gut and tamped it down, smile wider. He attempted a jovial tone that didn't quite reach its mark, "Should I reduce you to rubble too?"

"When I tell you to stop, you will stop," Gol said, near enough to touch now. They brushed the side of K'thriss' face with the back of one clawed hand, observing the drow's forced cheer. Under the weight of their gaze K'thriss' smile slipped, then faded. The warlock said nothing, only tilted his head away from the caress.

Gol pulled back abruptly. "I've overstepped my bounds," the illithid remarked with an alarmed clicking noise. It was an oddly remorseful sound. "I let my desire get the better of me. It was ill done and I apologize." Gol withdrew further, backtracking the way they'd come.

"I have been on the receiving end of a lash," K'thriss' said evenly. There was no heat to it. No emotion at all. Even as he said the words, they seemed distant.

Gol's feet froze mid-step. "It is not a pleasant memory," the carver guessed.

K'thriss felt the corner of his mouth pull into a humorless grimace. "It wasn't great, no," he confirmed.

"You fear causing me the same distress," Gol said.

"I'm...concerned," K'thriss said. He thought it a reasonable position.

"Then we will not do this," Gol said. Simple as that.

"But what you told me…about _elen'cahl…"_ Now that the request had been withdrawn, K'thriss wasn't sure why he'd protested in the first place. He would be the one holding the whip. It wasn't as though he'd feel any pain.   

"I was wrong. The idea _does_ cause you harm. That is not acceptable." The illithid declared.

"Harm? What? No, I'm f-" K'thriss began.

"It was an idle fancy," Gol interrupted, awkwardly straightening their robes. "Do not concern yourself. I will be content."

* * *

Such misplaced compassion and needlessly worry.

_Should we run? Are these family members? Are you sure?  
_

Drider were not people. Only shells, puppets for the twisted magic and madness that drove them. Morbid fascination compelled him to seek recognition, but just because he looked did not mean he saw. Was the raiment known to him? Of course, but that could mean anything. They no doubt salvaged it. Did that woman's face seem familiar? With her features warped by age and rage, she could be anyone. Certainly not a neighbor who once said a kind word to an unhappy child. That token on the man's necklace, did it resemble an old schoolmate's lucky charm? No, a trick of the light, only a scrap of metal.

There were no people here to mourn. No grief to spill. He allowed himself only a vague melancholy. A touch of pity.

Whoever they had been, rage and fear overwhelmed them now, trapped in torment. It was a mercy to free them from such a state.

It was a mercy.

* * *

"Why would you _want_ to eat any of those things?" K'thriss asked. The past few meetings between the warlock and the carver had been purely academic. Gol traded notes on changes in the Underdark for knowledge of the surface world from K'thriss' centuries of travel. Gol kept a physical distance between them during these conversations, occasionally pacing, tension in his strides. Sometimes K'thriss felt Gol studying him with a quiet concern. The illithid did not mention his "idle fancy" again, as if the conversation had never happened. Yet K'thriss could not let it go.

"What things, specifically?" Gol replied.

"Suffering. Anger, fear, grief. They're _useless,"_ K'thriss felt his breath come short, and with an effort he inhaled deeply, tightly controlling the exhalation.

"The alternative is emptiness," Gol said.

"No. The alternative is _clarity,"_ K'thriss insisted. "Do you think Drider live fulfilling lives? They have no purpose, no higher calling. They're nothing _but_ their pain. _That_ is emptiness!" Gods, when had his heart beat gotten so fast? Even it out, let it fall away.

Gol said nothing, allowing silence to settle. Their gaze felt like a thousand skittering spiders. K'thriss suppressed the desire to brush at his arms, standing up and backing away.

"I have to go," he said. "There are things I need to do."

Every step into the darkness, he sensed the illithid's eyes on his back. He refused to let it bother him. One foot in front of the other, as measured and precise as Coriander's canter.

K'thriss thought he understood the workings of the dream space now. How to control it, bend it to his will, appear where he wanted, leave when he desired. Yet this time he forgot himself.

One moment he walked on a featureless, flat plane of darkness. The next, his feet stumbled over broken, jagged stones. He was running. Scrabbling over obstacles, squeezing his body through narrow gaps between fallen buildings. How did he get here? Where had he been going? Lost in rubble, K'thriss ducked under crumbling doorways, hiding in the shadow of toppled walls, trying to remember.

Ah. That's right. Something hunted him. Something unspeakable. He looked up. Never forget to look up. Too long on the surface, too easy to forget the wisdom of caves for the freedom of stars. Here he remembered, in the endless dark of hanging stone. He looked up, but nothing was there.

It was behind him.

He heard the clatter of chitinous legs and ran. Driven by instinct more than thought, K'thriss threw himself beneath a partially collapsed roof, eyes darting everywhere. The drow tried not to breathe, certain it would hear him gasping for air, if it did not simply follow the thundering of his heart. He strained his ears, listening, head twitching at every shifting stone and drip of water. Nothing. He'd lost his pursuer.

An armored leg burst through the ceiling, wicked point slamming into the ground inches from his hand. Wreckage rained all around him, cutting off escape. A rotting beam fell on his chest, pinning him. He struggled against it, choking on dust and loosed spores. Everything was coming down around him. Everything except the massive spider far above, so large that no matter how he stared in horror, he could not see the whole of her. She loomed, studying him, delighting in his pathetic, hopeless resistance. With one razor sharp leg, she pointed at the heavy mass pinning him. He realized it was not a beam, but a box, tightly wrapped in chains.

 _Open it_ , Lolth said, _and I will grant you mercy._

His hand moved of its own accord and touched the lid. It was covered in a sticky substance, clinging fast to his skin. K'thriss tried to yank his fingers away, but the motion only pulled at the lid. The chains strained, snapped, and the box burst open.

A wave of black spiders poured out, crawling up his arm, encasing it in a morass of shifting obsidian. They enveloped his shoulders, his neck, his back. He could feel them in his ears and nose, pulling at his tightly shut lips. He thrashed and contorted, but they only dug in, a wave of searing bites piercing his skin, burning his blood.

His body began to change, new limbs bursting out as bones shattered and reformed. A howling filled his ears, the source his own throat. The spiders flowed in his mouth, a solid mass of scraping legs. They filled his lungs, tearing into fragile tissue, burrowing holes until they found organs, shoving and stitching together pieces never meant to mesh that way. He clawed at his own chest, trying to get inside, to pull them out, but he did not know where the skin of arachnids ended and his own began.  Death he could accept, but this?

Corruption beyond endurance.

Desperately K'thriss drew his focus inward, shutting down his responses. Cutting off the pain, shunting away the terror, burying the fury. He felt his outsides harden, his skin numb, the spiders no longer biting, a part of him now. Their poison was just a chemical, one of many in his blood. Unimportant. Easily dismissed. What did it matter? It was flesh. A shell. He survived losing his eyes, why not other organs? One set of parts was as good as another. As long as it didn't disrupt the work he had to do. He would find a use for them.

Three of his newly formed legs shoved the empty box away. The broken chains rattled as they fell. Attaining freedom from the oubliette posed no great challenge to this new body. He had more than ample limbs for the task of scaling debris.

The giant spider looked down on him and smiled.

K'thriss looked up at her and, at last, felt nothing at all.


	7. The Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's starting to dawn on me that I'm working through some things with this story. Recent episodes have stirred up a lot of old memories. Ones I haven't dealt with in a long, long while. Digging through the ruins of a destroyed home is not something I have to imagine. Just recall.

There was a name he wanted to remember.

K'thriss?

_That is not a name. That is a sentence._

Thriss Rah’uuthli was a name, but it tasted…off. He chewed on it, spat it out, discarded the scraps. That wasn't what he needed. The name, the _name,_ what was it?

It was unknown to him.

This lack of knowledge did not upset him. Only itched. Like a grain of sand in a boot. That was an old memory, one his many barbed and chitinous appendages no longer understood. What _upset_ him was that it _should_ upset him more. His response seemed inappropriate, somehow. Lacking.

Always something _missing_.

A flare of light in the darkness. He looked down at the back of his hand, surprised to see four lines there. They seemed out of place. His fingers traced the marking. _Beloved._ He remembered the word.

Yet he felt nothing when he touched it.

That, too, seemed lacking.

* * *

There was new prey in the ruined district of Vervemith’deshmal. Canny. The others hunted this clever creature, but could never catch it. It drove them to a frenzy. He watched from high above, clinging to the ceiling, as his fellow drider tore at already disintegrating structures in pursuit. He did not join in the chase. They were driven by rage run rampant. He had clarity, and thus, did nothing. He knew there was no point. None at all.

A flicker of movement. The clutter of drider descended upon it with a single-minded, bloodthirsty intent. Frenzied howls and maddened screams filtered up to him on his lofty perch. They believed their quarry cornered. Then the remains of a tower leaned, tottered, and fell, sending up choking clouds of dust. He heard the drider shriek in frustration. They lost sight of their prey once more.

Deep down in his chest, where once a drow heart beat, something warmed. He felt the corner of his mouth twitch and wondered why.

A scout let out a ragged call. They found the trail again. He watched the cluster flow across the rubble, all scurrying legs and the glint of blades. The hunt went on.

In the opposite direction, near the edge of the district ruins, there was a flare of light. He looked down at his hand as it briefly illuminated in response, a soundless echo. His legs stirred, twitched, then lurched into stuttering motion. It wasn't that he was curious. Just that the itch was back. An irritant. One imperfection in his otherwise unblemished calm.

At some point his legs shifted to a run. Skittering across the ceiling of the cave, graceless, but swift. As he neared the site he bounded down a stalactite and let himself drop, twisting in mid-air, spreading his limbs wide. Wind whistled past his ears. The ground rose to meet him. He extended his legs, caught an exposed beam, launched himself away as it collapsed beneath his weight, and landed in a broken courtyard. There was a thunderous clatter of shifting stone as the building he'd disturbed finished its inevitable slide into rubble. Then nothing. Silence.

Strange that a lack of sound could feel so familiar. The air held an expectant quality.

His breath hitched. The name. Was it here?

His eyes scanned the ruined structures. There. On the far wall. Four lines.

It was not the name. Just a glyph. Something in him cooled. A vague sense of...disappointment? He ran his fingers over the roughly carved stone. Tetrathanotica. It meant "Unity."

_With whom?_

For a moment the question held him. A whisper of interest stirred. He shook his head. It did not matter. Nothing mattered. He did not know why he'd come. He scratched at the back of his hand. _Beloved_ echoed through his mind. An itch. Just an itch. It would pass.

As he turned away, there was another flare of light. Down the street, leading out of town. A blinding flash, then gone. An answering flicker from the mark on his hand. Before he could dismiss it, his legs were already moving. His body in rebellion, yet somehow that seemed an appropriate response.

He surrendered to the instinct.

The next site also bore the Unity glyph. And the next. He followed a trail of illusive lights and glyphs, out of the ruins, away from Guallidurth. Down into the stone, through ever deeper caves. He never saw who made the markings, but the silence grew more familiar. It felt precious somehow. He found himself taking pains to preserve it, moving noiselessly. It felt like a held breath. Or a secret shared between two lovers.

His thoughts became jumbled, his clean clarity fragmenting, yet he could not stop himself from moving. His face ached, muscles he'd forgotten straining into a grin. Legs moved at a heedless run. Light up ahead. Brighter than any before it.

Abruptly the tunnel widened and his eight legs clattered to a stop in a open cavern. At the center rose a black altar, grand and terrible. Upon it, before it, through it burned a sigil. It consumed his vision. The image vibrated in his sight. Pulsed, thrashed, flickered, as though barely maintaining a simple shape. It wanted him to read it. Yet he could not. He could not read it at all.

" _The name_ ," he rasped, his voice hoarse with awe and disuse. "I knew it, I _know_ it. Why can't I _remember_?"

His hand reached out. A buzzing filled his ears. The sigil was far away and suddenly beneath his fingers.

An overwhelming torrent of sensation scoured through his nerves, searing heat behind his ruined eyes. He flinched, yanked himself back. Tried to turn from the burning glyph, but could not twist his face away. His chest ached, skin clammy, hands shaking.

 _You once told me that knowledge is never a waste of time,_ said a voice in his mind. _I thought you brave, then. Was I wrong?_

"It's too much," he protested. "I can't hold it all."

_I see. A coward after all. You found the clarity you wanted? Simple truths, small enough to hold. Are they comfortable? Safe?_

Words shouldn't bother him. Yet they burned like bile in his throat.

_The man I knew would never be content with certainties so easy to conceive. He was drawn to what he could not contain. Even if it was painful. Was that a lie?_

"No," he growled. In his gut, anger bloomed. He thrust his arm forward once more, wrapping his fingers around the sigil that pulsed and shimmered before him. There was a blast of heat and with it grief, mindless and thick. It poured down his throat, stripped his lungs of air, scraped along his hardened skin and peeled the chitin away, leaving raw, soft flesh in its wake. He tried to sob, could not produce the tears, felt the tension clench in the center of his chest, choking on sorrow he could not consummate. No air. Only a tight pain. His heart broke free of the cobwebs inside him and began to labor. He gasped for breath and found it in shreds, not enough to sustain him. His fingers slipped, struggling to maintain his grip.

Warm arms wrapped around his shoulders. Held him fast. Restrictive, yet a comfort.

_Giving up so quickly?_

"No," he rasped. "I finish what I start."

The anger in his gut expanded into righteous, molten rage. Incandescent fury. Formless, sourceless, utterly irrational. A howling, gibbering, screaming bellow that tore in every direction at once, gnashing teeth and snarling. His entire body shook, thrummed with the desire to destroy. To tear and rend and rip. His limbs turned on each other, thrashing, legs lashing out. Chunks of abdomen tore away, joints sheared off, a frenzy of self destruction that cleaved away protections and pretensions. At last the armor split down the middle and he shed the carapace entirely, stumbling onto two weak, trembling legs that could not hold his weight. He fell to his knees, fingers still clutched around the unknown name.

Regret crushed him farther still. It was a sickness, a fever. It soaked into his skin. Guilt weighted his limbs, robbed him of will. Remorse was a heaving wave of nausea. Poison poured out of him in burning torrents. All for naught. The past could not be changed.  When he was hollowed out, he could accept that helplessness. The weakness and limitation.

The sigil was smaller now. Heavier. Denser. A warm weight in his palm.

"The Ur," he said. "Of course."

K'thriss looked up at Gol, who knelt beside him.

"How did you know?" the drow asked. "Someone else would have…you could have tried to lead me to yourself."

"I am not so vain to believe I am at the center of your heart," Gol told him. "Your passion has always been here. For the unknown."

The illithid clasped their hands around the drow's, encasing The Ur on its chunk of stone.

"Fortunately for me," Gol said, "it is a passion we share."


	8. Vessel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Likes: Alternative coping mechanisms, eggs, and long walks on the beach.

When K'thriss finally rejoined the waking world, an awful taste lingered in his mouth and his limbs felt heavy and unfamiliar. He stumbled down the stairs of the Dran & Courtier, miscounted the number of steps, and completely missed the last two. He fetched up against the bar in a near sprawl, upending one of the bar stools. Suppressing a groan, he set it right again, hoping that he had it facing the correct way.

"You know," began Propha, mere feet away. K'thriss nearly toppled the stool over a second time. "For most folks, I say a good long rest works wonders. That doesn't seem to be the case for you."

"Hmm," he replied, noncommittal.

K'thriss eased himself into the chair, using the bar to judge his placement. Only a little crooked. He could hear the soft sound of Propha running a cloth back and forth over the smooth surface.

"Rosie's been telling me about what happened down there," she said.

"Has she?" his tone was mild, but a flash of irritation stung at his chest. He resisted his usual urge to crush it, but wasn't sure what to do with the sensation otherwise. His fingers started picking at a loose thread on his sleeve, worrying the fabric.

"Not sure it's any of my business, though," Propha continued. He could feel her watching him.

"I didn't say that," he responded. The thread unraveled under his fingers. He started to pull.

There was a dull clunk as she set a glass on the counter.

"After Auspicia…disappeared…lot of well meaning folks wanted us to talk about it. Share our feelings," Propha said. "Never found much use for the practice." 

There was the sound of liquid being poured. The quiet squeak of a glass being pushed over polished wood. A cold, smooth surface met the back of his forearm. He left off tearing at the thread and took a sip. Simple barley water, not too sweet, with a fair bit of lemon. It cleared the horrid taste in his mouth. 

"I preferred to pour what I felt into something else. Audra put it into her music. I put it into this place," Propha tapped the bar top with a proprietary knuckle.

"You imbued a vessel," he said.

"That's a way of looking at it, yes," she said. "I've seen a fair share of folks dealing with hardship while running this place. Everybody has their own way of managing. But I have to say, some strategies seem better than others. Bottling…well, that just leads to…"

He rubbed his forehead, pressing the cool glass to his skin. "Feeling trapped in a dream so long that you forget your own name and live out a relative lifetime in service to a spider goddess that you despise?"

There was a disturbed silence. He took a swig of the barley water.

"…I'm speaking metaphorically, of course," he added, when no response was forthcoming from the other side of the bar.

There was a scrape of a stool across the floor. Two steps up. Something heavy being pulled from a high shelf. The ringing _pfung_ of a cork being popped from a ceramic jug. Another glass clicked onto the counter top. About a finger of liquid was poured into it. A second cool, smooth surface hit the back of his arm. The scent was so strong he could feel it burning his throat from the odor alone.

K'thriss picked up the glass. "Isn't this alcohol drink only supposed to be consumed after the morning hours?" he asked.

"I'll get you some eggs," she said.

"Oh, all right then," he replied. _Surface customs_ , he thought, and downed the glass of fire.

* * *

 

"Let's do that thing you wanted," K'thriss said. His hand mimed a whipping motion. "That thing."

"You are drunk," Gol pronounced.

"No, no, no, no," K'thriss said, hands waving back and forth in time with his words. "It's fine. I had some eggs."

"We're not doing something that you refused when you were sober," Gol said.

K'thriss released an extended, put-upon sigh, flopping down on the cool obsidian floor. "Propha said I needed a vessel," he said, outlining the rough shape of a glass with his hands. Or maybe it was a barrel. A round-ish shape, at the very least. "So I spent the whole day. Trying to find one. For these," his hands turned towards his chest, fingers curled like claws. "All these things. For a place to pour them. But I couldn't. So I had some more eggs."

"I see."

"I don't know what to do with the feelings, Gol. I know what I'm _not_ supposed to do with them, but that's not the same as knowing what I _am_ supposed to do with them. And I don't want to keep them. You want them. Can't you just eat them?" The last part came out as an undignified whine.

"Don't tempt me," Gol said gruffly.

"Just the parts I don't like," K'thriss said. "That's…can you do that? Just take a piece?" The warlock propped himself up on one elbow. "Cuz I have this friend, this Dragonborn friend, and he has about…" his free hand waved in loose, lazy circles, "sixty years he'd like to get rid of."

Gol's tentacles rippled over one another contemplatively. "I don't know," the carver said at last. "I could do some experiments with goblins, but their memories are so poor, I'm not sure how I'd be able to tell the difference."

"Ah," K'thriss said. "So we should do the other thing then."

"I am not having this conversation a second time. Tell me about," the illithid leaned back, searching for a topic, "the sun. Surface dwellers are always going on about the sun. What's it like?"

K'thriss made a face. "Not that great. It's…" his arms seemed very eager to participate in the discussion. He tried to find a gesture expressive enough to encapsulate the sun. "Sort of…round. Burning. Like an eye?" He looked at the shape of his hands and an idea occurred to him. "Oh, I know!"

Normally manifesting things in the dream space required careful concentration and precise application of will, but as soon as he thought it, two large, floppy sun hats appeared in the air before him. One was a bright yellow, the other a lily orange. He took the first and placed it on Gol's head. It had an enormous bow on one side.

"What is this?" Gol asked.

"Protection," K'thriss explained. He couldn't quite seem to get the ribbon tied. It might be due to Gol not really having a chin. Eventually K'thriss fed the ends into Gol's tentacles. They compulsively snarled the silky fabric, drawing it tight. "Good," K'thriss nodded, as if that had been his intention all along. He affixed the second hat to his own head. His ribbon required only two attempts.

"Now," he said, with a performer's flourish. "The sun!" He pointed into the air and the dream space shifted. A brilliant, searing orb appeared in the heavens. The featureless dark blossomed into a sickeningly saturated blue. The cool of the stone beneath them was replaced by a mixture of hot pebbles, seaweed, and mountains of lockets. The shriek of gulls and thunder of waves filled the air along with the fetid odor of rotting fish.

Gol hissed, snatching their hands off the ground. "Augh! It's hot," they said, hiding hands in their sleeves. The carver looked around, squinting. "I can't see a thing."

"Oh, oh, I remember this," K'thriss said. He whirled his fingers in small circles, manifesting a set of spectacles with colored glass. He tried to hang them on Gol's face, but the illithid had no ears. Eventually he shoved the temple tips against the side of Gol's face under the ribbon of the hat, pushing the glasses more or less into position around Gol's eyes.

"Better?" K'thriss asked. Gol gave a grudging nod, then turned his face upward. "Ah, wait, don't look at it," K'thriss cautioned. "Looking at the sun causes blindness. Not this kind of blindness," he gestured to his blindfold, "just the regular kind."

"What's the point of creating this if I can't even look at it?" the carver grumbled.

"Not looking is part of the experience," K'thriss said.

"Surface dwellers vastly over-hype their way of life," the carver said, glaring at a sea gull as it set down next to them. The foul bird squawked, pecking at the trailing edge of Gol's robe, eying the illithid's tentacles covetously.

"I know," K'thriss nodded solemnly. "And they have no appreciation for a proper mushroom."

Gol examined their surroundings more closely.   He pointed outward at the water.

"Ocean," K'thriss provided. The illithid gestured to the dark, groaning structures riddled with rot and barnacles. "Ships," K'thriss added, "broken ones. Like a graveyard, but for things."

They walked together on the uneven shore of stone and sand, discussing similarities and differences between the surface and the Underdark. Sand and stone were the same wherever you went, but some things required more explanation.

"Why here?" Gol asked at last. "You've been to many places on the surface. What made you choose this one?"

K'thriss had sobered while they wandered. His hands no longer felt the need to punctuate every word. "I don't know," the warlock said, looking out over the rubble. They stood at the edge of a pit, created when a gigantic tree, who also happened to be his friend, burst out and sundered the beast accreting the artificial island. The hole had since filled with ocean water.

His hand brushed against his temple, fingertips scraping along his blindfold. "I lost something here," he said quietly. "I keep losing things. I try not to miss them. Just view it as a new experience. It doesn't seem to be working so well lately."

Only the shrill cries of gulls, the creak of dead ships, and the roar of ocean waves met this pronouncement.

The illithid brushed by him, pausing to place a hand on the warlock's shoulder.   "The next time you visit, I can be a vessel," Gol said. "If you still need one." They paused, looking out over the water and the broken ships, glaring at the gulls.

"No more eggs though," they said.

"No more eggs," K'thriss agreed.


	9. Tentacle Lash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinks: Flogging. Tentacle make-outs.
> 
> TW: Intrusive thoughts, self harm, suicidal ideation
> 
> Acknowledgements: This chapter exists due in large part to two Enablers In Chief. The first is [MaxwellsDeamon](https://twitter.com/MaxwellsDeamon), a remarkable human creature, whose encouragement and perspective brought me back from many a self-imposed anxiety trip. The second is KingNewbs, for whom I left in all the remotely steamy bits I otherwise would have cut following my better judgement. If you enjoy those segments, I direct you to KingNewbs (who also has some [wonderful and sometimes steamy fiction here on AO3 for you to enjoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingNewbs/pseuds/KingNewbs)). If you wish I'd mercilessly (mercifully?) edited them out, I again direct you to KingNewbs. That fiend.

He told them he was fine. It had the benefit of being true.

K'thriss was no more a broken thing than any mortal creature of limited flesh and perception. He breathed, he ate, he thought, he learned, he changed, he aged. He smiled and laughed in most of the right places, fumed and lamented when the occasion merited. In all respects, he functioned very well.

He was fine.

Except when he wasn't.

It was the fallow season. The roads rendered impassable mud. They helped at the Dran & Courtier, completed odd jobs about Red Larch, and whiled away hours on personal projects. Today they visited the Lighthouse, home to Fall Apples in the form of abandoned children.

"Gran'ma, what do you think?" The little girl was no more than five years of age, shyly presenting a misshapen wedge of clay to Rosie.

"Oh my goodness! Did you make this all by yourself?" the halfling asked, eyes wide and glowing as she looked the lump over from every angle. The girl nodded, gaze down at the floor and back up again, wringing hands in simple patched skirts.

"It's beautiful!" Rosie declared. "What's this here?" she asked, pointing at a blob of yellow paint.

"A bee!" the girl told her, proud for a brief moment, then shy again. "Do you like it?"

"I _love_ it!" Rosie exclaimed, opening her arms wide for a hug. The little girl squealed and leaped into the embrace. Although she was not much shorter than the halfling, Rosie still managed to sweep the child around and up into the air, both of them giggling. They danced through dust motes of ruby and orange, caught in evening sunset pouring through high windows. K'thriss looked on, a fond smile on his face. This was fine.

_Are you pleased?_

Then it wasn't.

He thought of it as the trembling. Not a physical trembling. No outward signs gave him away. Yet it reverberated through his body. Internal kinetic energy held by skin and bone in a concentrated potential for violence.

In those moments, K'thriss forced himself to stay very, very still. It took all his focus. Any motion would unleash that pent up force. He was certain it would be far beyond his control. Unspeakable and catastrophic. So he stood, utterly still, and held it.

The world faded. His awareness sank below the surface, falling into a deep well. A consuming void opened up in his gut. Sensation disconnected from skin, as if his body expanded far beyond physical bounds while his mind contracted, concentrating around a tight knot of threads all thrumming with tension. He could not let them go. If anything were to snap --

"Hey, K'thriss," Donaar's voice felt like sandpaper.

_Not now._

He could not move. Words were beyond him. Breathing was beyond him.

_Stay still, stay still, stay still._

"Did you hear me?" Unthinkable to ignore a dragonborn. Donaar took a step closer, hand reaching out toward the warlock's shoulder.

_No, no, no, no._

With a monumental force of will, K'thriss tilted his head up by degrees, a tiny series of tightly controlled jerks. The warlock shaped his best attempt at a smile. Donaar paused, expectant.

 _Words._ He needed words. They were so far away. He pulled them to his lungs, his throat, his lips. Such heavy burdens. Only a few. Force them out.

"Just…thinking," he managed to say.

The moment passed. The trembling faded. His smile smoothed out into something more natural. He took a breath that barely shook.

"Check this out," Donaar said. He held up a paper covered in bits of noodles and paste.

K'thriss tilted Ligotti to examine the work. The patterns rendered therein remained a mystery to him.

"It's…you?" K'thriss hazarded an educated guess.

"Pff, of course it's me. Pretty good, right? Way better than what Timmy boy over there did," Donaar gestured with a curt nod of his head to the table behind him, festooned with paper, noodles, and glue. A young half elf enthusiastically mashed macaroni against a sheet of scrap paper, partially coating it and partially coating himself.

Donaar leaned in close. "Between you and me, kid is _not_ cut out for the arts, you know what I'm sayin'?" he whispered conspiratorially, out of one side of his mouth. "Whoever gets him is gonna be _pretty_ disappointed with their keepsake options."

"I suppose not every child makes their parents proud," K'thriss replied evenly.

"Yeah," Donaar agreed, the usual bluster fading to a solemn melancholy, "Guess not." They stood side by side, watching the boy continue his enthusiastic assault on noodle art.

" _Anyway_ , I think this would look _great_ above the bar," Donaar said, and left to show off his creation to Rosie.

* * *

There was something oddly satisfying about plunging the knife into the empty socket of his eye. His entire body braced instinctively for pain and instead encountered the pleasure of one of the most idyllic spaces he'd ever known. What a remarkable means to enter his father's study!

K'thriss inhaled, taking in the aroma of leather and books, pipe smoke and alchemical components, and something uniquely _dad._ It was an odor he hadn't encountered for hundreds of years, yet it brought forth a flood of recollections, fresh as if they'd happened yesterday. A boon, considering how many memories his mind was missing. It was like stumbling on an unexpected chest in a basement and discovering childhood treasures long thought lost.

He trailed his hand along the table top, careful not to disturb the meticulous order of the instruments. Nearly a week of study dedicated to the layout, divining what he could of his father's process, mindset, and work. He kept meaning to conduct experiments of his own, but there would be time for that. For now, it remained undisturbed.

Only because he was busy. Not because he was sentimental.

He heard the skittering of the worm in its jar and tapped on the glass. _Hello,_ he said to it with Awakened Mind. _Are you anything?_ No response. Greeting it in this manner was something of a ritual between them. Maybe one day there would be an answer.

Running his hands along the cases of books, he let whim guide his fingers in selecting a volume. Ligotti chirped, anticipating his desire for sight, and wrapped about his shoulders in a configuration they'd found through trial and error suited them both. Supple leather, rich pages of thick paper edged in gold, a scarlet ribbon marking where the previous reader left off. He leaned against the shelf, leafing through the tome. On any other day, the content would be fascinating, yet he could not focus. His attention kept drifting to the chair in the corner.

K'thriss had yet to sit in it. Whenever he came here to read, he somehow always ended up leaning against a wall or sitting on the floor. Leaving the perfectly serviceable, if not ideal, chair untouched. It was built in full, round curves of creased, shiny russet leather. Soft to the touch. Still holding the shape of his father, a reverse image containing the space of the man instead of the substance. The pipe, now emptied, retained its place on the side table. Cold.

He returned the book to the shelf. Two, three, four hesitant steps. Hands spread across the arm of the chair. He sat.

It felt warm. As if only moments ago, father stood up from here and walked out the door.

Suddenly he regretted even touching the chair. The space, now disrupted, would never be the same. Warmth driven out. Displaced. Taken before its time.

He tried to set the moment in his memory, clinging to the phantom of body heat, the smell, the texture of the leather. Preserve it against dissolution.

Even that seemed inappropriate.

By all evidence, his father worshiped _That Which Endures._ The very essence of inevitable destruction. What right did he have to hold onto anything in this place? Would his father want this perfect sanctuary left unchanged? K'thriss picked up the pipe, turning it in his hands. _Was that why you never told me?_

The trembling began again. He set the pipe down sharply, too afraid to hold it any longer. The thought of damaging the keepsake was unbearable, but he knew in a moment destruction would be the only thing on his mind. The warlock leaned back in the chair, the press of his body obliterating the lingering impression his father had made. Then the full force of the fit was upon him and he caged himself in stillness.

_This was never meant for me. He would have shown me if it was. If he'd had the time. If he'd made the effort. If he hadn't gotten caught._

His hands tightened around the arm rests and he grit his teeth, crushing even that small movement back to stillness, the bones standing out as his fingers clenched.

 _Stupid. Irrational to be angry at a man for dying. It wasn't his choice to leave me. Alone, never knowing. All this wasted time. I wasn't meant for_ That Which Endures, _but The Ur is inexorably linked. How much farther could I be if I'd known? If he'd shared his secret? I would have kept the knowledge safe. Understood the risk._ _Helped him hide it. I could have been trusted. I was his SON._

**_FWACK._ **

Something slammed into the side of his face and he nearly toppled from the chair, vision flaring a blood red. The trembling faded, his cheek stinging. Dazed, he looked around, trying to determine what hit him. Ligotti squawked with dismay, whirling down his arm to nip at his hand. Belatedly, K'thriss realized his fingers were balled into a fist.

He'd struck himself.

K'thriss hadn't meant to do it. He couldn't even recall the impulse crossing his mind. It simply happened. His will had been immaterial to the action.

Ligotti continued to snap and hiss at his hand. With an effort, K'thriss released the fist, shaking out strained fingers. His familiar subsided, worming back up to his shoulders, keeping a wary set of eyes on the treasonous limb. He withdrew his sight from the tentacle, preferring blindness.

The warlock sat in his father's chair, cold and utterly alone.

There was a flicker of light from the back of his off hand.

 _No. Not alone,_ he thought.

K'thriss spent the rest of the evening preparing a perfectly worded Sending, and after several hours of work, discarded everything he'd written and instead sent:

 

 

>  
> 
> _I'm not fine._
> 
> _..._
> 
> _Love, K'thriss._  
> 
>  

* * *

Gol held a bag of ice up to K'thriss' cheek. Being only a construct in a dream, it made no difference to the damage on his corporeal form, but nonetheless it made the warlock feel a little better. They sat across from each other in a dim pocket of light on the cold obsidian floor.

"You did not hold back," the illithid observed.

"Wasn't on purpose," K'thriss said.   He took the bag from Gol. The carver withdrew, glittering eyes assessing him, tentacles twining over each other thoughtfully.

"Have you told any of your companions?" they asked.

K'thriss shook his head. "It's not just…" the warlock gestured to his face with the pack of ice. "There are…thoughts. Urges, that come with these…whatever they are. Fits. I don't know how they'd react."

"You fear their opinion of you would change," Gol said.

"Honestly, what they think about me is probably not great already," K'thriss said with a half-hearted, self-depreciating smile. "Any more and they might run me out of town."

Gol let out a gurgling huff of exasperation and did not dignify the partial jest with a response.

"Besides, it's under control," the warlock continued.

One of Gol's tendrils reached out and prodded the drow's bruised cheek. K'thriss winced.

"Mostly," he amended.

"How long has this been happening?" Gol asked, his voice laden with suspicion.

K'thriss shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "The fits? A few days. Weeks, maybe. A month? It's hard to say."

Nobody had a silent stare quite like Gol's. K'thriss did not require eyes to sense it. It burned on his skin like a spray of acid.

"I didn't see the point in bringing it up," he said, frustrated at the defensiveness in his voice. "At first it was only when I tried to meditate. No harm to anyone. A fit would come, it would go. Just thought it was part of the process."

"What process?" the illithid asked.

"You know," K'thriss scowled. "Everything. Guallidurth."

"You refer to grieving," Gol said.

K'thriss scoffed. "The time for _that_ was centuries ago when my father died. Why would it bother me now?"

Gol treated him to another extended silence. A very pointed one.

"I _hated_ my mother," K'thriss hissed. "Almost as much as she hated me. It was a _relief_ to see her dead."

The illithid said nothing.

K'thriss flung up his hands. "Talking to you is pointless," he declared, and threw himself back to lie on the floor in a dignified sulk.

"Apparently so," Gol agreed darkly, "otherwise you might have mentioned this _weeks_ ago."

K'thriss watched the skin on the illithid's face flow down over their eyes in a glower. The drow felt his stomach clench under the weight of Gol's disapproval. He swallowed and said nothing. The carver continued to stew, glaring out into the endless dark of the dream space.

"I am not interested in a _piece_ of you," Gol said at last. "I am greedy. It is one of many faults. I desire far more than a pleasant face or stimulating conversation. I want _everything._ The ugly bits. The things you hide. You can have your secrets," Gol's expression became hard, "but do not presume to feed me falsehoods."

"That's the second time you've accused me of lying," K'thriss said, frowning.

"Not lying," Gol let out another gurgling huff. "You are, as always, a seeker of truth. Yet you tell a great many incomplete tales. I confess the habit infuriates me."

"I thought you liked a little mystery," K'thriss countered, trying for a teasing tone. It came out with an edge.

"Not at your expense," Gol said, tentacles snapping with frustration. "It's as if you insist on eating poison and then wonder why I protest!"

"You'd be surprised how much poison you can survive in small amounts," K'thriss commented casually, thinking of his _Edibles and Oddities_ catalog.

Gol turned their head slowly, tendrils cascading over one another, to regard K'thriss in silence for a moment.

"…You understand how such a statement is not a comfort?" the illithid asked at last.

K'thriss considered that a moment. "Yeeaah, okay." He propped himself up on one elbow. "But I'm still here. Surely that earns me a little credit?"

Gol responded with an exasperated shake their head.

The carver leaned back, folding clawed hands over their stomach. Tentacles fiddled with buckles and smoothed out cloth. It looked suspiciously like stalling. "It has been a very long time since I met an equal," Gol said. "I am used to subordinates bringing me their every problem," the glower returned, "and I am used to lies and treachery from those who do not." The tentacles left off their fidgeting and wandered, curling toward the drow, fussing with K'thriss' beard. The carver's gaze was oddly downcast, almost shy. "I am not used to someone else judging the right time to speak. Or having faith that half truths will not equate to betrayal. I know how to give orders. Extending trust is far more difficult."

K'thriss snared one of the tendrils with his finger, watching as it compulsively wrapped itself up and around his palm. "That I can understand," the warlock said.

* * *

The main room of the Dran & Courtier was in chaos when K'thriss descended the stairs the next day. Packed with strangers covered in mud and peevish for it. The floor was a ruin of greasy boot prints, slick and unpleasant. Propha spotted him as he paused on the landing.

"K'thriss! Make yourself useful!" she ordered, shouting over the din, harried. He had no idea what she meant, but reflexively bobbed a bow in response to the commanding, matriarchal tone. He made his way to the bar, slipping behind it.

"You the bartender?" a middle-aged woman in scarred leather armor asked. She peeled off filthy gloves, shoving them into her belt next to her sword scabbard. A younger woman in mud-soaked robes looked up from where she wearily rested her head on folded arms, slumped over the back of a barstool.

He placed his hands flat on the now scuffed counter and said with as much confidence and cheer as he could muster, "Yes? Yes! Hello, Friends! Welcome!"

"Yeah, yeah. Hello to you too," said the older woman. "Look, I've been stuck in that gods forsaken pig slop you people call a road for days because the shit-for-brains running this operation can't count. The only thing I care about right now is a stiff drink. You have that?"

"We have the alcohol," K'thriss said, glancing back at the keg of Propha's latest brew. "Beer? I think?"

"Whatever. I'll have a pint," she said, shoving a man out of his stool and taking it for herself. "You having anything, Mo?"

The young woman yawned. "Same," she said. "If you're paying, Tildre."

Tildre grunted.

K'thriss nodded. As the warlock turned toward the shelves behind him, Ligotti reared upward from his shoulders to direct his master to the pint glasses. The sound of a muffled shriek and steel being drawn prompted K'thriss to whirl around, friendliest smile in place, hands held out placatingly. "Just a pet!" he insisted. "It's fine, Friends. Nothing to worry about."

Tildre slid her sword back into its scabbard and grudgingly returned to her seat. Mo stared at Ligotti with wide eyes.

"Rwer Rwert!" Ligotti chirped helpfully. Mo squeaked. K'thriss returned to pulling pint glasses off the shelf and attempted to divine the means by which to extract the mysterious beer from its wooden barrel casing.

" _Tyr's arse_!" Tildre muttered under her breath. "Why do drow always have to be so _weird?_ He's as bad as that con artist we met outside of Amphail."

"Tildre! Don't be _rude_ ," Mo hissed. K'thriss felt a small spark of gratitude. "That man was a _merchant,_ not a _con artist._ And an elf, not a _drow_." The spark snuffed out.

"Tell me you didn't buy anything from him," Tildre groaned.

"He gave me a great deal," Mo said proudly. "Look!"

Tildre snorted. "How much you pay for that?"

"Three gold!"

Derisive laughter met this pronouncement. Tildre pounded on the bar. "Three gold? _Three gold?_ Gods, Mo, I knew you were gullible, but all that for a bit of glass?"

"It's not glass! It's an indestructible seed from a sacred wood elf tree," Mo sniffed, haughty. "If I plant it in the ground, a dryad will come out and protect me." Curious, K'thriss bid Ligotti turn on his shoulders to stare at the two women instead of the stubborn keg. The crimson bauble in the girl's hand certainly didn't _look_ like a nemezir seed. Or any seed.

"Oh, indestructible. Sure it is," Tildre scoffed.

"He hit it with a hammer right in front of me! Not a scratch on it!" Mo insisted.

" _Shit_ , Mo, you are so damned _dumb._ What kind of bargain did you think you were making? Can't you tell a magic amulet from a hunk of glass?"

"No! I'll show you!" Mo put her prize on the surface of the bar, pulled out her dagger, and brought the pommel down.

A burst of shrapnel and a sudden moment of quiet as people turned toward the noise.

"That…that _son of a bitch!"_ Mo shrieked. Tildre laughed and laughed.

Propha appeared at the other end of the bar. "K'thriss! What are you doing?"

He continued fiddling with the barrel, sure he almost had it. "Drinks?" he said.

"I've _got_ front of house," Propha said. "It's _back_ of house I need. I'd have Rosie do it, but she took Walnut and Auspicia out to visit the Lighthouse before this lot showed up. Potatoes, carrots, chop and into the pot. Go. Go!"

"Of course," he said, once again with a reflexive bow. He looked around for a place to deposit the still empty glasses, finally balancing them awkwardly on top of the keg, making a hasty and relieved exit to the relatively peaceful kitchen.

K'thriss took a moment for a centering breath, feeling strangely off-kilter. On the far side of the room a large pot bubbled fiercely over the fire. Nearby on the counter sat a pile of freshly washed carrots and potatoes, skins still on. A knife lay abandoned on a cutting board next to a ragged striped washcloth of white and red. He approached, feeling rattled.

His hand reached for the knife.

_What kind of bargain did you think you were making?_

Just before he touched it, the trembling begin. K'thriss froze.

His fingers curled around the blade's handle. He watched it rise, tightly gripped, and point towards his face.

K'thriss twitched. There was no knife in his hand. It was still on the cutting board, his fingers hovering above it. _Stay still, stay still, stay still._

He fingered the edge of the blade. Sharp. Savored the heft of it. Heavier than the key to his father's study. He knew it would feel just as satisfying. Maybe more.

Ligotti nipped his ear. The pot was still bubbling in the corner. The blade was still on the cutting board. Nothing in his hand. _Just another fit. Let it pass._

The knife plunged toward his eye, growing in his vision. He thrust it into his skull, piercing pain --

K'thriss jerked himself away from the counter, nearly overbalancing and narrowly avoiding a nasty stumble into the fire. His breath came in labored gasps as he stared at the innocuous pile of vegetables. It was just a kitchen knife. A simple stew. Had he become incapable of even such a basic task? What was wrong with him?

 _You are so damned_ dumb.

Moments later, Propha once again found K'thriss at the bar. He filled several pint glasses with only a few spills, distributing them to patrons.

"K'thriss, I thought I told you --?"

"Velvet's taking care of it," K'thriss said calmly, a mild smile on his face. "I really think I'm better suited to the front of house."

* * *

He maintained the placid, pleasant expression for the rest of the day. Eventually the cantankerous members of the unseasonable caravan were settled into rooms and onto spare cots, many of them shelling out extra coin for a hot bath and laundry service. Propha rousted Donaar out of bed with much protest, and after being reminded of how incredibly strong they all thought he was, the dragonborn hauled water up and down the stairs to show off his impressive Strong Boy skills. Velvet floated through the common room serving stew, perfectly cubed potatoes and carrots floating in a thick, savory gravy. Eventually Rosie returned and fresh rolls emerged from the kitchen in steaming baskets accompanied by crocks of honey butter. Auspicia set about sweeping, clearing mounds of dried mud off the floors and out the door. Walnut deployed her trusty glower to keep the rowdier elements well behaved.

Through it all, K'thriss manned the bar, keeping the beer flowing until the last drops of the keg. All while preserving an ever welcoming smile and a merry "Hello, Friend!" at his lips.

By the end of the day, his face might as well been porcelain.

The smile stayed on up the stairs. Into his room. Even into dreams. He greeted Gol with the same impenetrable cheer. The illithid took one look at him, brushed the drow's still bruised cheek with a slight caress, and said, "Even the ugly bits, Beloved."

K'thriss scowled bloody murder at him. The carver seemed inordinately pleased.

"Why is this happening?" K'thriss fumed, after relaying the fit with the knife. "Nothing is going on! Not even the right season for the Wandering Crypt. Why now?" He paced, feeling the need to move, venting the frustration of the day.

"Perhaps the lack of activity _is_ why. When did you last allow yourself to rest?" Gol asked, but K'thriss barely heard him.

"And why _that?"_ the warlock muttered. "Of course I've thought about it. Everybody does. Never so vividly though."

"Thought about what?" Gol asked.

"How I'd take my own life," he said, matter-of-factly. Gol's tentacles twitched in a way K'thriss hadn't seen before, but the drow felt too agitated to study the new expression. "I just never worried about actually _doing_ it. But after what happened yesterday…" he rubbed at his cheek, his footsteps finally slowing to a stand still. "I really wasn't sure…if I picked up that knife. I wasn't sure what would happen." He opened and closed his hand, thinking of the illusory sensation of the blade. "This has to stop. I'm becoming so _useless._ "

Gol approached him from behind, wrapping arms about his midsection. The illithid set his head on the drow's shoulder, tentacles lazily twining down his back and up his neck. "You could be utterly useless and I would still be here," Gol reminded him. K'thriss made a dismissive sound, but a tightness in his chest eased slightly. He sighed.

"This doesn't feel like me _,"_ he said, fingers curling into claws. "I want to… _destroy_ something. Tear it to pieces." His vision speckled with facets of carbuncle red, voice dropping to a feral growl, "I don't know _why_ , but I _want_ it."

Every part of Gol went very still. Even the tendrils, which typically moved with a mind of their own, ceased their explorations.

"What?" the drow asked, coming back to himself.

The illithid pulled away, saying nothing, but as he turned, K'thriss caught a yearning in Gol's eyes.

"Oh. _Oh,"_ K'thriss said, putting things together. " _That._ " Once he'd completely sobered after their discussion on the beach, doubts crowded their way back in. The carver, true to their word, had not brought the subject up again. The need for a vessel faded with time. K'thriss found other ways of coping with the process of…whatever he felt after Guallidurth.

Now he imagined a whip in his hand and a wave of foreign feelings met the thought. Heat flowed across his skin. His lips pulled back, baring teeth. Hungry. He wanted to take the carver _apart._ K'thriss saw a tremor ripple through the illithid's body and did not know if it was born of fear or desire.

The drow stepped back, shaking his head as he tried to clear it. "My control," it was humiliating to admit, "is not what it should be."

"You could rely on mine," Gol said, voice rumbling and low. "I am _very good_ at giving orders."

"I haven't always been reliable at following them," K'thriss reminded him. He meant it as a warning, although memory made the words come out fond. K'thriss heard Gol's strange wet chuckle. Despite how unsettled he felt, the drow could not repress a smile. A real one this time. The illithid reached out and pulled them close once more.

"I remember," they said, "but also recall, this is a dream. There is room for mistakes. Even if your worst fears should come to pass, I will awaken without a scratch." The tentacles were wandering again, playing with K'thriss' hair, trailing over his Foci, brushing against the edge of his blindfold and mouth. "I say we explore the nature of this destructive urge and see what lies beneath."

A part of him wanted to refuse the idea outright, yet he had to admit there was appeal. The desire to _do_ , to _act,_ to _move_ thrummed just under the skin and K'thriss was tired of staying still. He felt trapped, helpless to halt the slow erosion of his faculties, clinging to his fragmenting control. It would be a relief to abandon the fight for a time and give in where it would do no harm. His hands twitched, opening and closing.

The illithid's grip tightened, "You are not the only one that enjoys being useful, Beloved. These feelings are poisoning you. Once you asked me to be a vessel. At that time I refused. Ask me now, and I will say yes."

"Will you?" a fragile request.

" _Yes,"_ Gol breathed, and the hunger returned, consuming lingering doubts.

Gol loosened the buckles holding their complex raiment together. "Help me with this," the illithid said. K'thriss moved to the carver's back, nimble fingers making short work of the harder to reach ties. Together they removed layers of leather and cloth, piece by piece. K'thriss started to fold the garments neatly. "Leave it," Gol insisted. The drow let it fall from his hands. Eventually there was a circle of discarded clothing around the illithid. The carver stretched, stepping out of it like a demon moving beyond a broken summoning circle.

 _What kind of demon?_ K'thris idly wondered. Gol's steps were predatory as they approached, eyes smoldering. _Incubus. Succubus? Definitely one of those._

The warlock gestured at his own clothes, clearing his throat. "Should I take these off too?"

"No," Gol said. They ran clawed hands across his shoulders, down the clasps at his throat, arms burrowing beneath the cloak and twining about his waist. "I enjoy the contrast." Tentacles curled around his neck, twined about his ears, teased the corners of his lips. The drow's tongue darted out and licked one that came too close. Gol abruptly seemed short of breath. "Deploying distraction tactics, are we?" the illithid asked. K'thriss smiled, all innocence.

"Open," Gol demanded, two separate tendrils tracing the drow's mouth. He parted his lips and the lithe appendages flooded past them, running over his teeth and twining about his tongue. K'thriss had the sudden urge to bite down and his mouth began to close. "No," Gol stopped the motion with a firm grip on his chin. "I said _open_." The urge vanished and he let his jaw hang loose, submitting to Gol's exploration of his mouth and throat, savoring the weight on his tongue. He felt dizzy when the illithid withdrew. Gol seemed similarly dazed.

"…very effective distraction tactics," the carver said, bemused. "Well done."

"I try to please," K'thriss murmured, face flushed. 

"Good," Gol said, straightening the warlock's mussed cloak. "I've further instructions for you."

The illithid had him spread his legs to a solid, partial lunge, critiquing his stance, tapping gently at his feet until they were positioned just so. A hand ran up his spine, Gol insisting he straighten his posture.

"Hunching again," Gol said. "Always hunching."

Every directive came with a slight touch, to the point that K'thriss began to suspect the demands simply a contrivance to caress his side, the back of his knee, across his chest, his inner thigh. Soon his entire body tingled with ghost sensations, anticipating the next brush of a hand or tentacle. Experimentally, he slumped his shoulders, and immediately felt Gol's fingers slide along his spine between his shoulder blades.

"Do I have to tell you twice?" Gol asked, and K'thriss heard amusement thick beneath the faux outrage. He grinned and saw Gol's eyes twinkle with mischief.

"You're the only one that gets to be insolent and contrary?" K'thriss asked.

"Yes," Gol said. "Now stand up straight."

K'thriss complied.

At last, when he thought that he might go mad from teasing touches, the illithid withdrew, looking him up and down. The carver nodded, seeming pleased with their work. "Good," they said, and K'thriss felt oddly proud at having met expectations. Gol ran their hands from the warlock's shoulder to his wrist, the contact eliciting a delightful shiver, positioning K'thriss' arm up above his head. "Now," Gol continued, leaning in close to murmur in his ear, "Manifest a lash."

K'thriss considered his options and settled on a variation of Thorn Whip. Smooth, flexible amethyst matter, much like what Ligotti was composed of, coalesced in his hand. He held his carefully crafted stance, allowing the cool length of the whip to flow down his arm, past his shoulder, tip brushing the floor. Gol picked up a segment, exploring the heft and texture.

"Do you have much experience using it?" the illithid asked.

"It's…not been one of my most successful spells," K'thriss confessed.

"Then we will practice," Gol said, and with a fluid wave of his hand, manifested a target several feet away. The illithid ran him through a series of strokes, adjusting the distance of the target and directing improvements in technique. K'thriss shied away from wondering how the carver knew such things. He suspected that not everyone on the receiving end of Gol's lash in the past had been happy about it. That thought led him to goblins, and _that_ thought led him to Tasteful, and _that_ thought led to a reprimand from Gol about getting distracted.

Some mysteries of the universe K'thriss was better off not knowing.

Eventually Gol seemed satisfied, telling him to drop the stance and stretch. Naked and unperturbed, the carver observed him intently, commanding even without their usual imposing garments. K'thriss got the distinct impression this was somehow a test, and after rolling his shoulders and shaking out his legs, did his best to resume the exact position Gol had left him in. The skin about the carver's eyes crinkled, tentacles curling and unfurling, the illithid's version of a smile. K'thriss felt warm all over with the unspoken approval.

Gol banished the practice target with another wave of their hand, creating a wall of smooth black stone in its place. They leaned against it, tentacles wrapped around their own back, indicating regions as they spoke. "Much of the at risk locations are the same as on a drow," Gol said. "Avoid the areas where your kidneys would be. Do not strike the spine, head, or top of the shoulders. The upper legs only in moderation. No joints. " A tendril moved to circle four locations, the top and bottom halves of the rib cage on their left and right. "This is where I expect you to strike. Do _not_ get careless with your aim and allow the whip to wrap." Gol looked back at him, challenging. "Do you understand?"

His mouth was dry, nerves and doubts returning. "Yes," he said, subdued.

Gol noticed his hesitation. "Trust me to know what I like, Beloved," the carver said, eyes watching him closely. "Just as I am trusting you to know your limits. If this does you harm, stop. You're not one of my soldiers. You _can_ disobey an order." They smiled their strange, writhing smile, voice a heady purr, "Although I'd prefer you not to."

The sound sparked a liquid heat in his belly. His mouth opened and he licked his lips, ready, eager to prove himself up to the challenge. Gol nodded, turning away and leaning their weight on both arms against the wall.

"Strike," they said.

K'thriss let his arm fall, the whip following.

The lash impacted with a meaty _thud_ against the upper portion of Gol's back. The illithid huffed.

"Surely you can inject more passion than _that,_ " the carver chided. "Again."

He brought his arm back up and down, faster this time. The left side. The tip impacted with a satisfying _snap_ and Gol twitched, releasing a hiss.

"Technically well done, but where is the _feeling_? I already have plenty of _elen'cahl._ Give me something with bite! _Again!"_

The admonishment rankled. He took aim a third time, refusing to disappoint. _Even the ugly bits,_ he thought, gathering up his frustration. He let his arm swing, feeding it the strain of the day. The tedium, the annoyances, the petty grievances. His brow lowered in a glare, gut tightening, a growing sensation of anger building that far exceed its apparent cause.

**_CRACK!_ **

The whip impacted on the lower half of Gol's ribs and the illithid's body jerked, a welt already forming on their strange, semi-translucent skin.

" _Yes,"_ they growled. " _More."_

_Are you pleased?_

Something broke inside K'thriss. The hunger burst beyond containment, a raging beast. Logical thought fled. A moment earlier all he wanted was to please, but now he wished to break Gol down into a quivering mess. Shatter that commanding illusion of control. The whip felt solid in his hand and his blood hummed with equal parts power and shame. His lips pull back into an animal snarl, jaw twitching, anger a palpable substance. He could feel it dripping from his tongue, like black tar running down his chin. Red light flickered in and out of sight. He brought his arm down, heard a ragged cry of pain and pleasure from the illithid as the whip impacted, but K'thriss did not see where the tentacle lash met flesh.

**_CRACK!_ **

Instead he saw the Lighthouse, bathed in the ruby glow of sunset. Rosie spinning a little girl, giggling, and he stood there watching, wanting nothing more than to burn the place to the ground. To consume their happiness, gnash it in his teeth, rip it to pieces. Just to shatter something precious. Petty. No better than Meat and Mouths.

"Good, it tastes _so good,_ " the illithid moaned. "I want _everything._ Another." The whip came down and K'thriss' rage rose with it.

**_CRACK!_ **

_Was that why you never told me?_ A book tossed open on a russet leather chair, scarlet ribbon tangled. A sacred place disturbed, desecrated. He was an open mouth that victims kept walking into. When had people started to trust him? Fools. _Fools._ His own parents hadn't _trusted_ him. And they were _right_ not to. One was dead by his own hand and the other he resented for not living longer. What a _fine son_ he turned out to be.

**_CRACK!_ **

Hints of strain entered Gol's voice, yet the illithid clung to control. K'thriss felt disgust and hate well up from his stomach and he didn't know why.

"Again," the illithid demanded, breathless, a quaver undermining the command.

**_CRACK!_ **

_What kind of bargain did you think you were making?_ Shards of cheap crimson glass burst across the counter like dying stars. Gol was a fool. They both were. This was a mistake. Nobody should _trust_ him. He couldn't even trust himself. Bargained with the _wrong god_. Mistook that pathetic, all too _mortal_ Meat and Mouths for The Ur? What was he _thinking?_ _Stupid. So STUPID!_

**_CRACK!_ **

"Ah!" Gol gasped, a lewd mixture of ecstasy and pain. "Enough," they panted. "K'thriss, enough."

His vision was nothing but red. This was the moment. He could see all the outcomes. When everything broke. He was teeth. Mouths. Feeding. Betrayal. He would devour the trust so foolishly given. Consume every drop of affection. Leave nothing but scraps behind. See how easy it was?

The hand with the whip began to fall.

_See how easy?_

The hand carved with the blazing glyph caught it.

_No._

The trembling came upon him in a crush of carbuncle red.

He lost himself, drew inward, tried to find the stillness he'd previously employed with mixed success. The warlock felt torn in every direction, the vibration within and without rattling his bones. It grew with every moment, set on reducing him to shards of powdered glass. The body of his hunger was immense, growing exponentially. K'thriss contracted, focus narrowing to a single point, holding the threads, maintaining the tension. He felt his hand contort around each line, cutting into his palm, wires straining against weak flesh. He looked up at the knot he desperately tried to contain, seeing the strands clearly for the first time.

Each glistened a blood red.

Far above loomed a vast engine of crystalline teeth. Meshing together, gnashing and crushing like the gears of a clockwork automaton. An endless spiral of interwoven barbs with no beginning or ending, no consistent shape. Every facet seemed to mock him.

The God of Mouths.

A fury, clean, cold, and righteous, ignited in his chest. It flooded through his veins. The hunger burned away.

"You petty _intercessor_ , _"_ he hissed. K'thriss opened his hand, releasing the threads he previously tried to control. They flew away, ends whipping wildly, unraveling as they went. The only thing that kept them whole had been his touch.

There was no cataclysm. No uncontrolled outburst. He'd been fine all along. Doubt and fear the only true danger, feeding on his trust, day by day, nibbling at his state of mind. Chewing at his balance, co-opting his grief for its own sustenance.

Eating. It was just _eating._

 _I'm taking myself off the menu_ , he thought, defiant.

 _For now,_ said Meat and Mouths. _For now._

The carbuncle edifice hummed, harmonic resonances feeding into increasingly violent vibration. The crystal cracked. Burst. Scattered like ruby dust motes, vanishing once out of the light.

K'thriss came back to himself, one hand holding the other, whip tangled about his arm. His heart beat wildly. Back in the room of black stone. Gol slumped against the wall, collapsed onto their knees. Angry welts stood out clearly on the carver's back, lines of broken skin leaking bluish blood. A wordless groan of dismay left K'thriss' lips and he threw himself forward, tossing the lash behind him like a poisonous snake.

"Gol. Gol?" He pulled the limp illithid into his arms, careful not to touch the marks and cause further harm. "I'm sorry, so stupid, I can't believe I was so _stupid._ Should have seen it," he was babbling, not sure how to fix the mess he'd made.

A tendril crept drunkenly up his face and dragged across his lips, stemming the rush of words from his mouth. Gol blinked at him fuzzily, expression dazed.

"I will hear…no apologies," the illithid slurred. "I got… _exactly_ what I wanted. And I am… _exceptionally_ pleased."

"You are?" K'thriss could not keep the disbelief from his voice. He couldn't recall a time when _anyone_ had been exceptionally pleased with him.

Gol's hands moved up in a loose, uncoordinated motion, narrowly avoiding a collision with the drow's face. " _Yes,"_ the carver said fervently, staring vaguely past K'thriss' ear. They took a deep breath, squinted, and then repeated, " _Yes,"_ as if they weren't sure they'd spoken before or not. "Safe to trust…" The tentacles on their face continued to blunder around clumsily, bumping into the drow's nose. The illithid's eyes couldn't seem to focus. "Hope was…good exchange…" Gol muttered.

One tendril snarled K'thriss' hand and began lazily twining through his fingers. He held Gol, waiting for the illithid to become more coherent. K'thiss sent Ligotti over to the pile of discarded garments and had the familiar drag back the heavy cloak, pulling it over Gol as their skin began to cool. The carver burrowed against his chest, emitted a wandering, melodic sound of contentment that sounded almost like singing, albeit of a very strange tune.

Eventually Gol released a long sigh, pushing up to a sitting position, one hand on K'thriss' shoulder for balance. They left it there, warm, even through the layers of clothing.

"Did you find what was underneath?" Gol asked. They sounded tired, but deeply satisfied.

"I did," K'thriss replied.

He told them he was fine. It had the benefit of being true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to take a moment to express my gratitude to the "C" Team players and their DM. Not just for sharing a fantastic gaming and entertainment experience with their viewers each week, but for creating characters and worlds that have prompted such strong feelings. Beyond that, I appreciate their encouragement of fan contributions, and tolerance (and/or occasional enabling) of folks borrowing their amazing characters for self-indulgent fanfiction romps. 
> 
> I didn't know how important and valuable writing this story would be. It started on a lark, a silly challenge to see if I could write something even remotely smutty. (The degree to which I've been successful will likely depend on how you define smut. Loooooots of magical BDSM, nooooooot a lot of organs meshing with other organs in here. Sorry? Not sorry? A little sorry?)
> 
> About seven chapters in I finally realized this project had, unbeknownst to me, unlocked a closet full of unprocessed grief. The door was open from the first word on the page, but it took me that long to see it. (The irony of chapters 1-3 featuring an INCREDIBLE amount of self delusion is not lost on me.) Creating this story often left me a wrung out wreck, and I have no idea if the character voices have stayed intact, but the process has been really valuable. Not just for dealing with things that I've buried for years, but also reminding me of joy I'd forgotten. This is the longest prose piece I've made in…almost a decade? I feel reconnected with a lost facet of myself, a piece I really love. I want to do a lot more writing this year, for a lot of different projects, and never lose track of this side of myself again. I didn't predict such a discovery from making fanfiction. I never expected to write fanfiction at all. 
> 
> So my thanks to Jerry, Kris, Kate, Ryan, Amy, (and Elyssa!) for making a project so fun and exciting, and welcoming others into their world. I hope my fellow shadow council members have found this work to be pleasing. Or at the very least, that it has done no harm. I don't know if I'll write more chapters. After every chapter I've thought, "This is the last one," but then I'd be up at 4 am again, unable to sleep, demon muse on my back. The beast feels a little more sated these days, but I've given up trying to predict it. We'll see. It's a terrible monster, but I'm very happy it's here.


End file.
